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RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE. 



THE 



RISE AND FALL 



OF 



THE MUSTACHE 



AND OTHEE ' 



"HAWE-ETETEMS." 



BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE, 

I l 

The Humorist of the Burlington " Hawk-Eye." 



ILLUSTRATED BY R. W. WALLIS. 



BURLINGTON, IOWAI. 

BURLINGTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 

HARTFORD, CONN., AND CINCINNATI, O. 

AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1878. 



\N 



%72 



copyright. 
Burlington Publishing Company. 

1-1517. 






TO 

FRANK HATTON 

Editor-in-Chief, 



MY ASSOCIATES ON THE HAWKEYE, 



IN HAPPY REMEMBRANCE 



OF OUR PLEASANT FELLOWSHIP, THIS VOLUME 



IS INSCRIBES 




PREFACE 



The appearance of a new book is an indication that 
another man has found a mission, has entered upon the 
performance of a lofty duty, actuated only by the noblest 
impulses that can spur the soul of man to action. It is 
the proudest boase of the profession of literature, that no 
man ever published a book for selfish purposes or with 
ignoble aim. Books have been published for the conso- 
lation of the distressed; for the guidance of the wandering; 
for the relief of the destitute; for the hope of the penitent; 
for uplifting the burdened soul above its sorrows and 
fears; for the general amelioration of the condition of all 
mankind; for the righl against the wrong; for the good 
against the bad; for the truth. This book is published 

for two dollars per volume. 

R. J. B. 



CONTENTS. 



A. Boy's Day at Home, 

A Burlington Adder, 

A Burlington Novelette, 

A Candid Confession, 

A Modern Goblin, . 

A Rainy Day Idyl, 

A Reminiscence of Exhibition Day, 

A Safe Bet, . . . . 

A Sunday Idyl, 

A Taciturn Witness, . 

A Thrilling Encounter, . , . 

A Trying Situation, . 

An Autumnal Reverie, 

Buying a Tin Cup, 

Cornering the Boys, 

Dangers of Bathing, 

Driving the Cow, 

Five Women, . 

Getting Ready for the Train, . 

Hawk - Eyetems 

Infantile Scintillations, 

Inspirations of Truth, 

Life in the " Hawkeye " Sanctum, 

Master Bilderback Returns to School, 

Master Bilderback' s Poultry - Yard, 

Middlerib's Dog, 

Middlerib's Picnic, 

Mind Reading, .... 

Misapplied Science, 

Mr. Baringer's House Cleaning, 

Mr. Bilderback Loses His Hat, 

Mr. Gerolman Loses His Dog, 

Mr. Olendorf's Complaint, 



PAGE, 

305 
to6 
199 

i95 
240 
96 
203 
232 
294 

140 
164 
221 
320 

i35 
144 
188 

72 
166 

67 
334- 
327 
180 
125 

84 
290 
302 
280 
228 
no 
316 
223 

92 
206 



CONTENTS. 



Ode to Autumn, 

One of the Legion, 

Rupertino's Panorama, 

Rural Felicity, 

Selling the Heirloom, 

Settling Under Difficulties 

Singular Transformation, 

Sodding as a Fine Art, 

Special Providences, . 

Spirit Photography, 

Spring Days in Burlington, 

Spring Time in America, . 

Suburban Solitude, 

The Amenities of Politics, 

The Artless Prattle of Childhood 

The Automatic Clothes - Line Reel 

The Demand for Light Labor, 

The Garden of the Gods, 

The Goblin Gate, 

The Language of Flowers, 

The Lay of the Cow, 

The Power of Dignity, 

The Rise and Fall of the Mustache, 

The Romance of the Carpet, 

The Seedsman, 

The Sorrows of the Poor, 

Voices of the Night, 

Why Mr. Bostwick Moved, 

Wide Awake, .... 

Woodland Music and Poetry, 

Writing for the Press, 

Young Mr. Coffinberry Buys a Dog, 



The Rise and Fall 



The Mustache. 



WE open our eyes in this living world around us, in 
a wonder land, peopled with dreams, and haunted 
with wonderful shapes ; and every day dawns upon us 
in a medley of new marvels. We are awakened from 
these dreams by contact with hard, stubborn facts, not 
rudely and harshly, but gradually and tenderly. So 
much that is bright and beautiful, and full of romance 
and wonder, passes away with the earlier years of life, 
that by the time we are able to earn our first salary we 
hold in our hands only the crumpled, withered leaves of 
childhood's simple creeds and loving superstitions. Year 
after year, the inconoclastic hand of earnest, real life, 
tears from the lofty pedestals upon which our loving 
fancy had enshrined them, the gods of gold that crumble 
into worthless clay at our feet. We live to lose faith, at 
last, in " Puss in Boots ; " we cease to weep over the sad 
tragedy of " Cock Robin ; " there comes a time when we 
can read £t Arabian Nights," and then go to bed without 
a tremor; with one heart-breaking pang at last we give 
up darling " Jack the Giant Killer," and acknowledge 



IO RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

him to be the fraud he stands confessed ; it is not long 
after that, we learn to look upon William Tell as a 
national myth, and then we come to know, in spite of all 
that orthodox theology has taught us to the contrary, 
that Adam was not the first man — -that raised a mus- 
tache. Adam was too old — when he was born — to care 
very much about what our grander and more, gradually 
developed civilization considers the crowning facial 
ornament. And after his natural human idleness got 
him into perfectly natural human trouble, he was kept 
too busy raising something to put under his lip, to think 
much about what grew above it. If Adam wore a mus- 
tache, he never raised it. It raised itself. It evolved 
itself out of its own inner consciousness, like a primordial 
germ. It grew, like the weeds on his farm, in spite of him, 
and to torment him. For Adam had hardly got his farm 
reduced to a kind of turbulent, weed producing, granger 
fighting, regular order of things — had scarcely settled 
down to the quiet, happy, care -free, independent life of 
a jocund farmer, with nothing under the canopy to molest 
or make him afraid, with every thing on the plantation 
going on smoothly and lovelily, with a little rust in the 
oats ; army worm in the corn ; Colorado beetles swarm- 
ing up and down the potato patch; cutworms laying 
waste the cucumbers ; curculio in the plums and borers 
in the apple trees ; a new kind of bug that he didn't 
know the name of desolating the wheat fields; dry 
weather burning up the wheat, wet weather blighting the 
corn ; too cold for the melons, too dreadfully hot for the 
strawberries; chickens dying with the pip; hogs being 
gathered to their fathers with the cholera ; sheep fading 
away with a complication of things that no man could 
remember; horses getting along as well as could be 
expected, with a little spavin, ring bone, wolf teeth, dis- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 1 

temper, heaves, blind staggers, collar chafes, saddle galls, 
colic now and then, founder occasionally, epizootic when 
there was nothing else ; cattle going wild with the horn 
ail ; moth in the bee hives ; snakes in the milk house ; 
moles in the kitchen garden — Adam had just about got 
through breaking wild land with a crooked stick, and 
settled down comfortably, when the sound of the boy 
was heard in the land. 

Did it ever occur to you that Adam was probably the 
most troubled and worried man that ever lived? We 
have always pictured Adam as a care-worn looking man; 
a puzzled looking granger who would sigh fifty times a 
day, and sit down on a log and run his irresolute 
fingers through his hair while he wondered what under 
the canopy he was going to do with those boys, and 
whatever was going to become of them. We have 
thought too, that as often as our esteemed parent asked 
himself this conundrum, he gave it up. They must 
have been a source of constant trouble and mystification 
to him. For you see they were the first boys that 
humanity ever had any experience with. And there 
was no one else in the neighborhood who had any boy, 
with whom Adam, in his moments of perplexity, could 
consult. There wasn't a boy in the country with whom 
Adam's boys were on speaking terms, and with whom 
they could play and fight. Adam, you see, labored 
under the most distressing disadvantages that ever 
opposed a married man and the father of a family. He 
had never been a boy himself, and what could he know 
about boy nature or boy troubles and pleasure? His 
perplexity began at an early date. Imagine, if you can, 
the celerity with which he kicked off the leaves, and 
paced up and down in the moonlight the first time little 
Cain made the welkin ring when he had the colic. How 



12 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

did Adam know what ailed him ? He couldn't tell Eve 
that she had been sticking the baby full of pins. He 
didn't even know enough to turn the vociferous infant 
over on his face and jolt him into serenity. If the fence 
corners on his farm had been overgrown with catnip, 
never an idea would Adam have had what to do with it. 
It is probable that after he got down on his knees and 
felt for thorns or snakes or rats in the bed, and thor- 
oughly examined young Cain for bites or scratches, he 
passed him over to Eve with the usual remark, " There, 
take him and hush him up, for heaven's sake," and then 
went off and sat down under a distant tree with his 
ringers in his ears, and perplexity in his brain. And 
young Cain just split the night with the most hideous 
howls the little world had ever listened to. It must 
have stirred the animals up to a degree that no menagerie 
has ever since attained. There was no sleep in the 
vicinity of Eden that night for anybody, baby, beasts or 
Adam. And it is more than probable that the weeds 
got a long start of Adam the next day, while he lay 
around in shady places and slept in troubled dozes, dis- 
turbed, perhaps by awful visions of possible twins and 
more colic. 

And when the other boy came along, and the boys got 
old enough to sleep in a bed by themselves, they had no 
pillows to fight with, and it is a moral impossibility for 
two brothers to go to bed without a fracas. And what 
comfort could two boys get out of pelting each other with 
fragments of moss or bundles of brush? What dismal 
views of future humanity Adam must have received from 
the glimpses of original sin which began to develop itself 
in his boys. How he must have wondered what put into 
their heads the thousand and one questions with which 
they plied their parents day after day. We wonder what 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 3 

he thought when they first began to string buckeyes on 
the cat's tail. And when night came, there was no hired 
girl to keep the boys quiet by telling them ghost stories, 
and Adam didn't even know so much as an anecdote. 

Cain, when he made his appearance, was the first and 
only boy in the fair young world. And all his education 
depended on his inexperienced parents, who had never 
in their lives seen a boy until they saw Cain. And there 
wasn't an educational help in the market. There wasn't 
an alphabet block in the county ; not even a Centennial 
illustrated handkerchief. There were no other boys in 
the republic, to teach young Cain to lie, and swear, and 
smoke, and drink, fight, and steal, and thus develop 
the boy's dormant statesmanship, and prepare him for 
the sterner political duties of his maturer years. There 
wasn't a pocket knife in the universe that he could bor- 
row — and lose,. and when he wanted to cut his finger, as 
all boys must do, now and then, he had to cut it with a 
clam shell. There were no country relations upon whom 
little Cain could be inflicted for two or three weeks at a 
time, when his wearied parents wanted a little rest. 
There was nothing for him to play with. Adam couldn't 
show him how to make a kite. He had a much better 
idea of angels' wings than he had cf a kite. And if 
little Cain had even asked for such a simple bit of 
mechanism as a shinny club, Adam would have gone out 
into the depths of the primeval forest and wept in sheer 
mortification and helpless, confessed ignorance. I don't 
wonder that Cain turned out bad. I always said he 
would. For his entire education depended upon a most 
ignorant man, a man in the very palmiest days of his 
ignorance, who couldn't have known less if he had tried 
all his life on a high salary and had a man to help him. 
And the boy's education had to be conducted entirely 



14 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

upon the catechetical system ; only, in this instance, the 
boy pupil asked the questions, and his parent teachers, 
heaven help them, tried to answer them. And they had 
to answer at them. For they could not take refuge from 
the steady stream of questions that poured in upon them 
day after day, by interpolating a fairy story, as you 
do when your boy asks you questions about something 
of which you never heard. For how could Adam 
begin, " Once upon a time,'' when with one quick, 
incisive question, Cain could pin him right back against 
the dead wall of creation, and make him either specify 
exactly what time, or acknowledge the fraud? How 
could Eve tell him about " Jack and the bean stalk," 
when Cain, fairly crazy for some one to play with, knew 
perfectly well there was not, and never had been, another 
boy on the plantation ? And as day by day Cain brought 
home things in his hands about which to ask questions 
that no mortal could answer, how grateful his bewildered 
parents must have been that he had no pockets in which 
to transport his collections. For many generations came 
into the fair young world, got into no end of trouble, and 
died out of it, before a boy's pocket solved the problem 
how to make the thing contained seven times greater 
than the container. The only thing that saved Adam 
and Eve from interrogational insanity was the paucity of 
language. If little Cain had possessed the verbal 
abundance of the language in which men are to-day 
talked to death, his father's bald head would have gone 
down in shining flight to the ends of the earth to escape 
him, leaving Eve to look after the stock, save the crop, 
and raise her boy as best she could. Which would have 
been, 6,000 years ago, as to-day, just like a man. 

Because, it was no off hand, absent-minded work 
answering questions about things in those spacious old 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 17 

days, when there was crowds of room, and everything 
grew by the acre. When a placid, but exceedingly unan- 
imous looking animal went rolling by, producing the 
general effect of an eclipse, and Cain would shout, " Oh, 
lookee, lookee pa! what's that?" the patient Adam, trying 
to saw enough kitchen wood to last over Sunday, with a 
piece of flint, would have to pause and gather up words 
enough to say: 

"That, my son? That is only a mastodon giganteus; 
he has a bad look, but a Christian temper." 

And then, presently : 

"Oh, pop! pop! What's that over yon? " 

"Oh, bother," Adam would reply; "it's only a paleo- 
therium, mammalia pachydermata." 

"Oh, yes; theliocomeafterus. Oh! lookee, lookee at 
this 'un!" 

"Where, Cainny? Oh, that in the mud? That's only 
an acephala lamelli branchiata. It won't bite you, but 
you mustn't eat it. It's poison as politics." 

"Whee! See there! see, see, see! What's him?" 

"Oh, that? Looks like a plesiosaurus; keep out of his 
way; he has a jaw like your mother." 

"Oh yes; a plenosserus. And what's that fellow, 
poppy?" 

"That's a silurus malapterus. Don't you go near him, 
for he has the disposition of a Georgia mule." 

"Oh, yes; a slapterus. And what's this little one? " 

" Oh, it's nothing but an aristolochioid. Where did you 
get it ? . There now, quit throwing stones at that acanth- 
opterygian; do you want to be kicked? And keep away 
from the nothodenatrichomanoides. My stars, Eve! 
where did he get that anonaceo-hydrocharideo-nymphae- 
oid? Do you never look after him at all? Here, you 
Cain, get right away down from there, and chase that 



1 8 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

megalosaurius out of the melon patch, or I'll set the 
monopleuro branchian on you." 

Just think of it, Christian man with a family to support, 
with last year's stock on your shelves, and a draft as long 
as a clothes-line to pay to-morrow! Think of it, woman 
with all a woman's love and constancy, and a mother's 
sympathetic nature, with three meals a day 365 times a 
year to think of, and the flies to chase out of the sitting- 
room ; think, if your cherub boy was the only boy in the 
wide wide world, and all his questions which now radiate 
in a thousand directions among other boys, who tell him 
lies and help him to cut his eye-teeth, were focused 
upon you ! Adam had only one consolation that has 
been denied his more remote descendants. His boy 
never belonged to a base ball club, and never teased his 
father from the first of November till the last of March 
for a pair of skates. 

Well, you have no time to pity Adam. You have your 
own boy to look after. Or, your neighbor has a boy, whom 
you can look after much more closely than his mother 
does, and much more to your own satisfaction than to the 
boy's comfort. Your boy is, as Adam's boy was, an 
animal that asks questions. If there were any truth in 
the old theory of the transmigration of souls, when a boy 
died he would pass into an interrogation point. And he'd 
stay there. He'd never get out of it; for he never gets 
through asking questions. The older he grows the more 
he asks, and the more perplexing his questions are, and the 
more unreasonable he is about wanting them answered 
to suit himself. Why, the oldest boy I ever knew — he 
was fifty-seven years old, and I went to school to him 
— could and did ask the longest, hardest, crookedest 
questions, that no fellow, who used to trade off all his 
books for a pair of skates and a knife with a corkscrew 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 9 

in it, could answer. And when his questions were 
not answered to suit him, it was his custom — a custom 
more honored in the breeches, we used to think, than 
in the observance — to take up a long, slender, but 
exceedingly tenacious rod, which lay ever near the big 
dictionary, and smite with it the boy whose naturally 
derived Adamic ignorance was made manifest. Ah me, 
if the boy could only do as he is done by, and ferule the 
man or the woman who fails to reply to his inquiries, as 
he is himself corrected for similar shortcomings, what a 
valley of tears, what a literally howling wilderness he 
could and would make of this world. 

Your boy, asking to-day pretty much the same ques- 
tions, with heaven knows how many additional ones, that 
Adam's boy did, is told, every time he asks one that you 
don't know any thing about, just as Adam told Cain fifty 
times a day, that he will know all about it when he is a 
man. And so from the days of Cain down to the present 
wickeder generation of boys, the boy ever looks forward 
to the time when he will be a man and know everything. 
That happy, far away, omniscient, unattainable manhood, 
which never comes to your boy; which would never 
come to him if he lived a thousand years ; manhood, that 
like boyhood, ever looks forward from to-day to the 
morrow ; still peering into the future for brighter light 
and broader knowledge ; day after day, as its world opens 
before it, stumbling upon ever new and unsolved myste- 
ries ; manhood, whose wisdom is folly and whose light is 
often darkness, and whose knowledge is selfishness ; 
manhood, that so often looks over its shoulder and 
glances back toward boyhood, when its knowledge was 
at least always equal to its day ; manhood, that after 
groping for years through tangled labyrinths of failing 
human theories and tottering human wisdom, at last 



20 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

only rises to the sublimity of childhood, only reaches the 
grandeur of boyhood, and accepts the grandest, eternal 
truths of the universe, truths that it does not compre- 
hend, truths that it can not, by searching, find out, 
accepting and believing them with the simple, unques- 
tioning faith of childhood in Truth itself. 

And now, your boy, not entirely ceasing to ask ques- 
tions, begins to answer them, until you stand amazed at 
the breadth and depth of his knowledge. He asks ques- 
tions and gets answers of teachers that you and the school 
board know not of. Day by day, great unprinted books, 
upon the broad pages of which the hand of nature has 
traced characters that only a boy can read, are spread 
out before him. He knows now where the first snow- 
drop lifts its tiny head, a pearl on the bosom of the barren 
earth, in the Spring; he knows where the last Indian 
pink lingers, a flame in the brown and rustling woods, in 
the autumn days. His pockets are cabinets, from which he 
drags curious fossils that he does not know the names of; 
monstrous and hideous beetles and bugs and things that 
you never saw before, and for which he has appropriate 
names of his own. He knows where there are three 
orioles' nests, and so far back as you can remember, you 
never saw an oriole's nest in your life. He can tell you 
how to distinguish the good mushrooms from the poison- 
ous ones, and poison grapes from good ones, and how he 
ever found out, except by eating both kinds, is a mystery 
to his mother. Every root, bud, leaf, berry or bark, that 
will make any bitter, horrible, semi -poisonous tea, 
reputed to have marvelous medicinal virtues, he knows 
where to find, and in the season he does find, and brings 
home, and all but sends the entire family to the cemetery 
by making practical tests of his teas. 

And as his knowledge broadens, his human superstition 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 21 

develops itself. He has a formula, repeating which nine 
times a day, while pointing his finger fixedly toward the 
sun, will cause warts to disappear from the hand, or, to use 
his own expression, will " knock warts." If the eight day 
clock at home tells him it is two o'clock, and the flying 
leaves of the dandelion declare it is half- past five, he 
will stand or fall with the dandelion. He has a formula, 
by which any thing that has been lost may be found. 
He has, above all things, a natural, infallible instinct for 
the woods, and can no more be lost in them than a 
squirrel. If the cow does not come home — and if she is 
a town cow, like a town man, she does not come home, 
three nights in the week — you lose half a day of valuable 
time looking for her. Then you pay a man three dollars 
to look for her two days longer, or so long as the appro- 
priation holds out. Finally, a quarter sends a boy to the 
woods ; he comes back at milking time, whistling the 
tune that no man ever imitated, and the cow ambles 
contentedly along before him. He has one particular 
marble which he regards with about the same supersti- 
tious reverence that a pagan does his idol, and his Sunday- 
school teacher can't drive it out of him, either. Carne- 
lian, crystal, bull's eye, china, pottery, boly, blood alley, 
or commie, whatever he may call it, there is "luck in it." 
When he loses this marble, he sees panic and bankruptcy 
ahead of him, and retires from business prudently, before 
the crash comes, failing, in true centennial style, with 
both pockets and a cigar box full of winnings, and a 
creditors' meeting in the back room. A boy's world is 
open to no one but a boy. You never really revisit the 
glimpses of your boyhood, much as you may dream of 
it. After you get into a tail coat, and tight boots, you 
never again set foot in boy world. You lose this mar- 
velous instinct for the woods, you can't tell a pig-nut 



2 2 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

tree from a pecan ; you can't make friends with strange 
dogs ; you can't make the terrific noises with your mouth, 
you can't invent the inimitable signals or the character- 
istic catchwords of boyhood. 

He is getting on, is your boy. He reaches the dime 
novel age. He wants to be a missionary. Or a pirate. 
So far as he expresses any preference, he would rather 
be a pirate, an occupation in which there . are more 
chances for making money, and fewer opportunities for 
being devoured. He develops a yearning love for school 
and study about this time, also, and every time he 
dreams of being a pirate he dreams of hanging his dear 
teacher at the yard arm in the presence of the delighted 
scholars. His voice develops, even more rapidly and 
thoroughly than his morals. In the yard, on the house 
top, down the street, around the corner; wherever there 
is a patch of ice big enough for him to break his neck 
on, or a pond of water deep enough to drown in, the 
voice of your boy is heard. He whispers in a shout, and 
converses, in ordinary, confidential moments, in a shriek. 
He exchanges bits of back-fence gossip about his father's 
domestic matters with the boy living in the adjacent 
township, to which interesting revelations of home life 
the intermediate neighborhood listens with intense satis- 
faction, and the two home circles in helpless dismay. 
He has an unconquerable hatred for company, and an 
aversion for walking down stairs. For a year or two his 
feet never touch the stairway in his descent, and his 
habit of polishing the stair rail by using it as a passenger 
tramway, soon breaks the other members of the family 
of the careless habit of setting the hall lamp or the 
water pitcher on the baluster post. He wears the same 
size boot as his father; and on the dryest, dustiest days 
in the year, always manages to convey some mud on 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 2$ 

the carpets. He carefully steps over the door mat, and 
until he is about seventeen years old, he actually never 
knew there was a scraper at the front porch. About this 
time, bold but inartistic pencil sketches break out mys- 
teriously on the alluring back ground of the wall paper. 
He asks, with great regularity, alarming frequency, and 
growing diffidence, for a new hat. You might as well 
buy him a new disposition. He wears his hat in the air 
and on the ground far more than he does on his head, 
and he never hangs it up that he doesn't pull the hook 
through the crown ; unless the hook breaks off or the hat 
rack pulls over. He is a perfect Robinson Crusoe in 
inventive genius. He can make a kite that will fly 
higher and pull harder than a balloon. He can, and, on 
occasion, will, take out a couple of the pantry shelves 
and make a sled that is amazement itself. The mouse- 
trap he builds out of the water pitcher and the family 
bible is a marvel of mechanical ingenuity. So is the 
excuse he gives for such a selection of raw material. 
When suddenly, some Monday morning, the clothes line, 
without any just or apparent cause or provocation, shrinks 
sixteen feet, philosophy can not make you believe that 
Prof. Tice did it with his little barometer. Because, 
far down the dusty street, you can see Tom in the dim 
distance, driving a prancing team, six -in -hand, with the 
missing link. You send him on an errand. There are 
three ladies in the parlor. You have waited, as long as 
you can, in all courtesy, for them to go. They have 
developed alarming symptoms of staying to tea. And 
you know there aren't half enough strawberries to go 
around. It is only a three minutes' walk to the grocery, 
however, and Tom sets off like a rocket, and you are so 
pleased with his celerity and ready good nature that you 
want to run after him and kiss him. He is gone a long 



24 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

time, however. Ten minutes become fifteen, fifteen grow 
into twenty ; the twenty swell into the half hour, and 
your guests exchange very significant glances as the half 
becomes three-quarters. Your boy returns at last. 
Apprehension in his downcast eyes, humility in his lag- 
gard step, penitence in the appealing slouch of his bat- 
tered hat, and a pound and a half of shingle nails in his 
hands. " Mother," he says, " what else was it you told 
me to get besides the nails ? " And while you are count- 
ing your scanty store of berries to make them go round 
without a fraction, you hear Tom out in the back yard 
whistling and hammering away, building a dog house 
with the nails you never told him to get. 

Poor Tom, he loves at this age quite as ardently as he 
makes mistakes and mischief. And he is repulsed quite 
as ardently as he makes love. If he hugs his sister, he 
musses her ruffle, and gets cuffed for it. Two hours 
later, another boy, not more than twenty -two or twenty- 
three years older than Tom, some neighbor's Tom, will 
come in, and will just make the most hopeless, terrible, 
chaotic wreck of that ruffle that lace or footing can be 
distorted into. And the only reproof he gets is the 
reproachful murmur, " Must he go so soon ? " when he 
doesn't make a movement to go until he hears the alarm 
clock go off upstairs and the old gentleman in the 
adjoining room banging around building the morning 
fires, and loudly wondering if young Mr. Bostwick is 
going to stay to breakfast ? 

Tom is at this age set in deadly enmity against com- 
pany, which he soon learns to regard as his mortal foe. 
He regards company as a mysterious and eminently 
respectable delegation that always stays to dinner, 
invariably crowds him to the second table, never leaves 
him any of the pie, and generally makes him late for 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 25 

school. Naturally, he learns to love refined society, 
but in a conservative, non-committal sort of a way, dis- 
sembling his love so effectually that even his parents 
never dream of its existence until it is gone. 

Poor Tom, his life is not all comedy at this period. 
Go up to your boy's room some night, and his sleeping 
face will preach you a sermon on the griefs and troubles 
that sometimes weigh his little heart down almost to 
breaking, more eloquently than the lips of a Spurgeon 
could picture them. The curtain has fallen on one day's 
act in the drama of his active little life. The restless 
feet that all day long have pattered so far — down dusty 
streets, over scorching pavements, through long stretches 
of quiet wooded lanes, along the winding cattle paths in 
the deep, silent woods ; that have dabbled in the cool 
brook where it wrangles and scolds over the shining peb- 
bles, that have filled your house with noise and dust and 
racket, are still. The stained hand outside the sheet is 
soiled and rough, and the cut finger with the rude band- 
age of the boy's own surgery, pleads with a mute, effective 
pathos of its own, for the mischievous hand that is never 
idle. On the brown cheek the trace of a tear marks the 
piteous close of the day's troubles, the closing scene in a 
troubled little drama ; trouble at school with books that 
were too many for him; trouble with temptations to 
have unlawful fun that were too strong for him, as they 
are frequently too strong for his father ; trouble in the 
street with boys that were too big for him ; and at last, 
in his home, in his castle, his refuge, trouble has pursued 
him until, feeling utterly friendless and in everybody's 
way, he has crawled off to the dismantled den, dignified 
usually by the title of " the boy's room," and his over- 
charged heart has welled up into his eyes, and his last 
waking breath has broken into a sob, and just as he 



26 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

begins to think that after all, life is only one broad sea 
of troubles, whose restless billows, in never - ending suc- 
cession, break and beat and double and dash upon the 
short shore line of a boy's life, he has drifted away 
into the wonderland of a boy's sleep, where fairy fingers 
picture his dreams. How soundly, deeply, peacefully he 
sleeps. No mother, who has never dragged a sleepy boy 
off the lounge at 9 o'clock, and hauled him off up stairs to 
bed, can know with what a herculean grip a square sleep 
takes hold of a boy's senses, nor how fearfully and won- 
derfully limp and nerveless it makes him ; nor how, in 
direct antagonism to all established laws of anatomy, it 
develops joints that work both ways, all the way up and 
down that boy. And what pen can portray the wonder- 
ful enchantments of a boy's dreamland ! No marvelous 
visions wrought by the weird, strange power of hasheesh, 
no dreams that come to the sleep of jaded woman or 
tired man, no ghastly specters that dance attendance 
upon cold mince pie, but shrink into tiresome, stale, and 
trifling commonplaces compared with the marvelous, the 
grotesque, the wonderful, the terrible, the beautiful and 
the enchanting scenes and people of a boy's dreamland. 
This may be owing, in a great measure, to the fact that 
the boy never refates his dream until all the other mem- 
bers of the family have related theirs ; and then he 
comes in, like a back county, with the necessary majority ; 
like the directory of a western city, following the census 
of a rival town. 

Tom is a miniature Ishmaelite at this period of his 
career. His hand is against every man, and about every 
man's hand, and nearly every woman's hand, is against 
him, off and on. Often, and then the iron enters his 
soul, the hand that is against him holds the slipper. He 
wears his mother's slipper on his jacket quite as often as 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 27 

as she wears it on her foot. And this is all wrong, 
unchristian and impolitic. It spreads the slipper and 
discourages the boy. When he reads in his Sunday- 
school lesson that the wicked stand in slippery places, he 
takes it as a direct personal reference, and he is affronted, 
and maybe the seeds of atheism are implanted in his 
breast. Moreover, this repeated application of the slipper 
not only sours his temper, and gives a bias to his moral 
ideas, but it sharpens his wits. How many a Christian 
mother, her soft eyes swimming in tears of real pain that 
plashed up from the depths of a loving heart, as she bent 
over her wayward boy until his heartrending wails and 
piteous shrieks drowned her own choking, sympathetic 
sobs, has been wasting her strength, and wearing out a 
good slipper, and pouring out all that priceless flood of 
mother love and duty and pity and tender sympathy 
upon a concealed atlas-back, or a Saginaw shingle. 

It is a historical fact that no boy is ever whipped twice 
for precisely the same offense. He varies and improves 
a little on every repetition of the prank, until at last he 
reaches a point where detection is almost impossible. 
He is a big boy then, and glides almost imperceptibly 
from the discipline of his father, under the surveillance 
of the police. 

By easy stages he passes into the uncomfortable period 
of boyhood. His jacket develops into a tail-coat. The 
boy of to-day, who is slipped into a hollow, abbreviated 
mockery of a tail-coat, when he is taken out of long 
dresses, has no idea- — not the faintest conception of the 
grandeur, the momentous importance of the epoch in a 
boy's life that was marked by the transition from the old- 
fashioned cadet roundabout to the tail-coat. It is an 
experience that heaven, ever chary of its choicest bless- 
ings, and mindful of the decadence of the race of boys, 



28 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

has not vouchsafed to the untoward, forsaken boys of this 
wicked generation. When the roundabout went out 
of fashion, the heroic race of boys passed away from 
earth, and weeping nature sobbed and broke the moulds. 
The fashion that started a boy of six years on his pilgrim- 
age of life in a miniature edition of his father's coat, 
marked a period of retrogression in the affairs of men, 
and stamped a decaying and degenerate race. There 
are no boys now, or very few at least, such as peopled 
the grand old earth when the men of our age were 
boys. And that it is so, society is to be congratulated. 
The step from the roundabout to the tail-coat was a 
leap in life. It was the boy lulus, doffing the pratexta 
and flinging upon his shoulders the toga virilis of Julius ; 
Patroclus, donning the armor of Achilles, in which to 
go forth and be Hectored to death. 

Tom is slow to realize the grandeur of that tail-coat, 
however, on its trial trip. How differently it feels from his 
good, snug-fitting, comfortable old jacket. Jt fits him 
too much in every direction, he knows. Every now and 
then he stops, with a gasp of terror, feeling positive, from 
the awful sensation of nothingness about the neck, that 
the entire collar has fallen off in the street. The tails are 
prairies, the pockets are caverns, and the back is one 
vast, illimitable, stretching waste. How Tom sidles along 
as close to the fence as he can scrape, and what a wary 
eye he keeps in every direction for other boys. When he 
forgets the school, he is half tempted to feel proud of his 
toga; but when he thinks of the boys, and the reception 
that awaits him, his heart sinks, and he is tempted to go 
back home, sneak up stairs, and rescue his worn old 
jacket from the rag-bag. He glances in terror at his 
distorted shadow on the fence, and, confident that it is 
a faithful outline of his figure, he knows that he has 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 2g 

worn his father's coat off by mistake. He tries various 
methods of buttoning his coat, to make it conform more 
harmoniously to his figure and his ideas of the eternal 
fitness of things. He buttons just the lower button, and 
immediately it flies all abroad at the shoulders, and he 
beholds himself an exaggerated mannikin of " Cap'n 
Cuttle." Then he fastens just the upper button, and the 
frantic tails flap and flutter like a clothes-line in a 
cyclone. Then he buttons it all up, a la militaire, and 
tries to look soldierly, but the effect is so theological- 
studently that it frightens him until his heart stops 
beating. As he reaches the last friendly corner that 
shields him from the pitiless gaze of the boys he can 
hear howling and shrieking not fifty yards away, he pauses 
to give the final adjustment to the manly and unmanage- 
able raiment. It is bigger and looser, flappier and 
wrinklier than ever. New and startling folds, and unex- 
pected wrinkles, and uncontemplated bulges develop 
themselves, like masked batteries, just when and where 
their effect will be most demoralizing. And a new horror 
discloses itself at this trying and awful juncture. He 
wants to lie down on the sidewalk and try to die. For 
the first time he notices the color of his coat. Hideous •' 
He has been duped, swindled, betrayed — made a mon- 
strous idiot by that silver-tongued salesman, who has 
palmed off upon him a coat 2,000 years old; a coat that 
the most sweetly enthusiastic and terribly misinformed 
women's missionary society would hesitate to offer a wild 
Hottentot; and which the most benighted, old-fashioned 
Hottentot that ever disdained clothes, would certainly 
blush to wear in the dark, and would probably decline 
with thanks. Oh madness ! The color is no color. 
It is all colors. It is a brindle — a veritable, undeni- 
able brindle. There must have been a fabulous amount 



3° RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

of brindle cloth made up into boys' first coats, sixteen 
or eighteen or nineteen years ago; because, out of 894 
— I like to be exact in the use of figures, because 
nothing else in the world lends such an air of profound 
truthfulness to a discourse — out of 894 boys I knew in 
their first tail-coat period, 893 came to school in brindle 
coats. And the other one — the 894th boy — made his 
wretched debut in a bottle-green toga, with dreadful 
glaring brass buttons. He left school very suddenly, and 
we always believed that the angels saw him in that coat, 
and ran away with him. But Tom, shivering with appre- 
hension, and faint with mortification over the discovery 
of this new horror, gives one last despairing scrooch of 
his shoulders, to make the coat look shorter, and, with a 
final frantic tug at the tails, to make it appear longer, 
steps out from the protecting aegis of the corner, is 
stunned with a vocal hurricane of " Oh, what a coat ! " 
and his cup of misery is as full as a rag-bag in three 
minutes. 

Passing into the tail coat period, Tom awakens to a 
knowledge of the broad physical truth, that he has 
hands. He is not very positive in his own mind how 
many. At times he is ready to swear to an even two ; 
one pair; good hand. Again, when cruel fate and the 
non-appearance of some one's else brother has compelled 
him to accompany his sister to a church, sociable, he can 
see eleven; and as he sits bolt upright in the grimmest 
of straight -back chairs, plastered right up against the 
wall, as the " sociable " custom is, or used to be, trying 
to find enough unoccupied pockets in which to sequester 
all his hands, he is dimly conscious that hands should 
come in pairs, and vaguely wonders, if he has only five 
pair of regularly ordained hands, where this odd hand 
came from. And hitherto, Tom has been content to 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 31 

encase his feet in anything that would stay on them. 
Now, however, he has an eye for a glove - fitting boot, and 
learns to wreathe his face in smiles, hollow, heartless, 
deceitful smiles, while his boots are as full of agony as 
a broken heart, and his tortured feet cry out for venge- 
ance upon the shoemaker, and make Tom feel that life 
is a hollow mockery and there is nothing real but soft 
corns and bunions. 

And : His mother never cuts his hair again. Never. 
When Tom assumes the manly gown she has looked her 
last upon his head, with trimming ideas. His hair will 
be trimmed and clipped, barberously it may be, but she 
will not be acscissory before the fact. She may some- 
times long to have her boy kneel down before her, while 
she gnaws around his terrified locks with a pair of scis- 
sors that were sharpened when they were made ; and 
have since then cut acres of calico, and miles and miles 
of paper, and great stretches of cloth, and snarls and 
coils of string; and furlongs of lamp wick; and have 
snuffed candles ; and dug refractory corks out of the 
family ink bottle ; and punched holes in skate straps ; 
and trimmed the family nails ; and have even done their 
level best, at the annual struggle, to cut stove - pipe 
lengths in two; and have successfully opened oyster 
and fruit cans; and pried up carpet tacks; and have 
many a time ana! oft gone snarlingly and toilsomely 
around Tom's head, and made him an object of terror 
to the children in the street, and made him look so much 
like a yearling colt with the run of a bur pasture, that 
people have been afraid to approach him too suddenly, 
lest he should jump through his collar and run 
away. 

He feels too, the dawning consciousness of another 
grand truth in the human economy. It dawns upon his 



32 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

deepening intelligence with the inherent strength and the 
unquestioned truth of a new revelation, that man's upper 
lip was designed by nature for a mustache pasture. 
How tenderly reserved he is when he is brooding over 
this momentous discovery. With what exquisite caution 
and delicacy are his primal investigations conducted. 
In his microscopical researches, it appears to him that 
the down on his upper lip is certainly more determined 
down; more positive, more pronounced, more individual 
fuzz than that which vegetates in neglected tenderness 
upon his cheeks. He makes cautious explorations along 
the land of promise with the tip of his tenderest finger, 
delicately backing up the grade the wrong way, going 
always against the grain, that he may the more readily 
detect the slightest symptom of an uprising by the first 
feeling of velvety resistance. And day by day he is 
more and more firmly convinced that there is in his lip, 
the primordial germs, the protoplasm of a glory that will, 
in its full development, eclipse even the majesty and 
grandeur of his first tail coat. And in the first dawning 
consciousness that the mustache is there, like the vote, 
and only needs to be brought out, how often Tom walks 
down to the barber shop, gazes longingly in at the 
window, and walks past. And how often, when he 
musters up sufficient courage to go in, and climbs into 
the chair, and is just on the point of huskily whis- 
pering to the barber that he would like a shave, the 
entrance of a man with a beard like Frederick Barba- 
rossa, frightens away his resolution, and he has his hair 
cut again. The third time that week, and it is so short 
that the barber has to hold it with his teeth while he 
files it off, and parts it with a straight edge and a scratch 
awl. Naturally, driven from the barber chair, Tom casts 
longing eyes upon the ancestral shaving machinery at 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 33 

home. And who shall say by what means he at length 
obtains possession of the paternal razor ? No one. No- 
body knows. Nobody ever did know. Even the searching 
investigation that always follows the paternal demand 
for the immediate extradition of whoever opened a fruit 
can with that razor, which always follows Tom's first 
shave, is always, and ever will be, barren of results. 
All that we know about it is, that Tom holds the razor 
in his hand about a minute, wondering what to do with 
it, before the blade falls across his fingers and cuts every 
one of them. First blood claimed and allowed, for the 
razor. Then he straps the razor furiously. Or rather, 
he razors the strap. He slashes and cuts that passive 
implement in as many directions as he can make motions 
with the razor. He would cut it oftener if the strap 
lasted longer. Then he nicks the razor against the side of 
the mug. Then he drops it on the floor and steps on it 
and nicks it again. They are small nicks, not so large 
by half as a saw tooth, and he flatters himself his father 
will never see them. Then he soaks the razor in hot 
water, as he has seen his father do. Then he takes it 
out, at a temperature anywhere under 980 Fahrenheit, 
and lays it against his cheek, and raises a blister there 
the size of the razor, as he never saw his father do, but 
as his father most assuredly did, many, many years 
before Tom met him. Then he makes a variety of 
indescribable grimaces and labial contortions in a fren- 
zied effort to gel his upper lip into approachable shape, 
and at last, the first offer he makes at his embryo mus- 
tache, he slashes his nose with a vicious upper cut. He 
gashes the corners of his mouth ; wherever those nicks 
touch his cheek they leave a scratch apiece, and he learns 
what a good nick in a razor is for, and at last when he 
lays the blood stained weapon down, his gory lip looks 



34 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

as though it had just come out of a long, stubborn, excit- 
ing contest with a straw cutter. 

But he learns to shave, after a while — just before he 
cuts his lip clear off. He has to take quite a course of 
instruction, however, in that great school of experience 
about which the old philosopher, had a remark to make. 
It is a grand old school ; the only school at which men 
will study and learn, each for himself. One man's 
experience never does another man any good; never did 
and never will teach another man anything. If the 
philosopher had said that it was a hard school, but that 
some men would learn at no other than this grand old 
school of experience, we might have inferred that all 
women, and most boys, and a few men were exempt from 
its hard teachings. But he used the more comprehensive 
term, if you remember what that is, and took us all in. 
We have all been there. There is no other school, in 
fact. Poor little Cain; dear, lonesome, wicked little 
Cain — I know it isn't fashionable Jo pet him; I know it 
is popular to speak harshly and savagely about our eldest 
brother, when the fact is we resemble him more closely 
in disposition than any other member of the family — 
poor little Cain never knew the difference between his 
father's sunburned nose and a glowing coal, un il he had 
pulled the one and picked up the other. And Abel had 
to find out the difference in the same way, although he 
was told five hundred times, by h : s brother's experience, 
that the coal would burn him and the - nose wouldn't. 
And Cain's boy wouldn't believe that fire was any hotter 
than an icicle, until he made a digital experiment, and 
understood why they called it fire. And so Enoch and 
Methusaleh, and Moses, and Daniel, and Solomon, and 
Caesar, and Napoleon, and Washington, and the President, 
and the Governor, and the Mayor, and you and I have all 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 35 

of us, at one time or another, in oneway or another, burned 
our fingers at the same old fires that have scorched human 
fingers in the same monotonous old ways, at the same 
reliable old stands, for the past 6,000 years ; and all the 
verbal instruction between here and the silent grave 
couldn't teach us so much, or teach it so thoroughly, as 
one well directed singe. And a million of years from 
now — if this weary old world may endure so long — when 
human knowledge shall fall a little short of the infinite, 
and all the lore and erudition of this wonderful age will 
be but the primer of that day of light — the baby that is 
born into that world of knowledge and wisdom and 
progress, rich with all the years of human experience, 
will cry for the lamp, and, the very first time that oppor- 
tunity favors it, will try to pull the flame up by the roots, 
and will know just as much as ignorant, untaught, stupid 
little Cain knew on the same subject. Year after year, 
century after unfolding century, how true it is that the 
lion on the fence is always bigger, fiercer, and more given 
to majestic attitudes and dramatic situations than the 
lion in the tent. And yet it costs us, often as the circus 
comes around, fifty cents to find that out. 

But while we have been moralizing, Tom's mustache 
has taken a start. It has attained the physical density, 
though not the color, by any means, of the Egyptian 
darkness — it can be felt; and it is felt; very soft felt. 
The world begins to take notice of the new-comer; and 
Tom, as generations of Toms before him have done, 
patiently endures dark hints from other members of the 
family about his face being dirty. He loftily ignores his 
experienced father's suggestions that he should perform 
his tonsorial toilet with a spoonful of cream and the 
family cat. When his sisters, in meekly dissembled 
ignorance and innocence, inquire, "Torn, what have 



36 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

you on your lip?" he is austere, as becomes a man 
annoyed by the frivolous small talk of women. And 
when his younger brother takes advantage of the pres- 
ence of a numerous company in the house, to shriek 
over the baluster up stairs, apparently to any boy any- 
where this side of China, " Tom's a raisin' mustashers ! '' 
Tom smiles, a wan, neglected-orphan smile; a smile that 
looks as though it had come up on his face to weep over 
the barrenness of the land ; a perfect ghost of a smile, as 
compared with the rugged 7X9 smiles that play like 
animated crescents over the countenances of the company. 
But the mustache grows. It comes on apace ; very short 
in the middle, very no longer at the ends, and very blonde 
all round. Whenever you see such a mustache, do not 
laugh at it; do not point at it the slow, unmoving finger 
of scorn. Encourage it; speak kindly of it; affect admi- 
ration for it ; coax it along. Pray for it — for it is a first. 
They always come that way. And when, in the fullness 
of time, it has developed so far that it can be pulled, 
there is all the agony of making it take color. It is worse, 
and more obstinate, and more deliberate than a meer- 
schaum. The sun, that tans Tom's cheeks and blisters 
his nose, only bleaches his mustache. Nothing ever 
hastens its color; nothing does it any permanent good; 
nothing but patience, and faith, and persistent pulling. 

With all the comedy there is about it, however, this is 
the grand period of a boy's life. You look at them, with 
their careless, easy, natural manners and movements in 
the streets and on the base ball ground, and their mar- 
velous, systematic, indescribable, inimitable and complex 
awkwardness in your parlors, and do you never dream, 
looking at these young fellows, of the overshadowing 
destinies awaiting them, the mighty struggles mapped out 
in the earnest future of their lives, the thrilling conquests 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 37 

in the world of arms, the grander triumphs in the realm 
of philosophy, the fadeless laurels in the empire of let- 
ters, and the imperishable crowns that he who giveth 
them the victory binds about their brows, that wait for the 
courage and ambition of these boys? Why, the world is 
at a boy's feet; and power and conquest and leadership 
slumber in his rugged arms and care-free heart. A boy 
sets .his ambition at whatever mark he will — lofty or 
groveling, as he may elect — and the boy who resolutely 
sets his heart on fame, on wealth, on power, on what he 
will; who consecrates himself to a life of noble endeavor, 
and lofty effort ; who concentrates every faculty of his 
mind and body on the attainment of his one darling 
point ; who brings to support his ambition courage and 
industry and patience, can trample on genius ; for these 
are better and grander than genius ; and he will begin to 
rise above his fellows as steadily and as surely as the 
sun climbs above the mountains. Hannibal, standing 
before the Punic altar fires and in the lisping accents of 
childhood swearing eternal hatred to Rome, was the 
Hannibal at twenty - four years commanding the army 
that swept down upon Italy like a mountain torrent, and 
shook the power of the mistress of the world, bid her 
defiance at her own gates, while affrighted Rome huddled 
and cowered under the protecting shadows of her walls. 
Napoleon, building snow- forts at school and planning 
mimic battles with his playfellows, was the lieutenant of 
artillery at sixteen years, general of artillery and the 
victor of Toulon at twenty - four, and at last Emperor — 
not by the paltry accident of birth which might happen to 
any man, however unworthy, but by the manhood and 
grace of his own right arm, and his own brain, and his 
own courage and dauntless ambition — Emperor, with 
his foot on the throat of prostrate Europe. Alexander, 

2* 



38 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

daring more in his boyhood than his warlike father could 
teach him, and entering upon his all conquering career 
at twenty - four, was the boy whose vaulting ambition 
only paused in its dazzling flight when the world lay at 
his feet. And the fair -faced soldiers of the Empire, they 
who rode down upon the bayonets of the English squares 
at Waterloo, when the earth rocked beneath their feet 
and the incense smoke from the altars of the battle god 
shut out the sun and sky above their heads, who, with 
their young lives streaming from their gaping wounds, 
opened their pallid lips to cry, " Vive L 'Empereur," as 
they died for honor and France, were boys — schoolboys — 
the boy conscripts of France, torn from their homes and 
their schools to stay the failing fortunes of the last grand 
army and the Empire that was tottering to its fall. You 
don't know how soon these happy-go-lucky young 
fellows, making summer hideous with base ball slang, 
or gliding around a skating rink on their backs, may 
hold the state and its destinies in their grasp; you 
don't know how soon these boys may make and write the 
history of the hour; how soon they alone may shape 
events and guide the current of public action ; how soon 
one of them may run away with your daughter or borrow 
money of you. 

Certain it is, there is one thing Tom will do, just about 
this period of his existence. He will fall in love with 
somebody before his mustache is long enough to wax. 

Perhaps one of the earliest indications of this event, 
for it does not always break out in the same manner, is 
a sudden and alarming increase in the number and 
variety of Tom's neck -ties. In his boxes and on his 
dressing case, his mother is constantly startled by the 
changing and increasing assortment of the display. 
Monday he encircles his tender throat with a lilac knot, 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 39 

fearfully and wonderfully tied. A lavender tie succeeds 
the following day. Wednesday is graced with* a sweet 
little tangle of pale, pale blue, that fades at a breath ; 
Thursday is ushered in with a scarf of delicate pea 
green, of wonderful convolutions and sufficiently expan- 
sive, by the aid of a clean collar, to conceal any little 
irregularity in Tom's wash day ; Friday smiles on a 
sailor's knot of dark blue, with a tangle of dainty forget- 
me - nots embroidered over it : Saturday tones itself down 
to a quiet, unobtrusive, neutral tint or shade, scarlet or 
yellow, and Sunday is deeply, darkly, piously black. It 
is difficult to tell whether Tom is trying to express the 
state of his distracted feelings by his neckties, or trying 
to find a color that will harmonize with his mustache, or 
match Laura's dress. 

And during the variegated necktie period of man's 
existence how tenderly that mustache is coaxed and 
petted and caressed. How it is brushed to make it lie 
down and waxed to make it stand out, and how he notes 
its slow growth, and weeps and mourns and prays and 
swears over it day after weary day. And now, if ever, 
and generally now, he buys things to make it take color. 
But he never repeats this offense against nature. He buys 
a wonderful dye, warranted to " produce a beautiful glossy 
black or brown at one application, without stain or injury 
to the skin." Buys it at a little shabby, round the cor- 
ner, obscure drug store, because he is not known there. 
And he tells the assassin who sells it him, that he is 
buying it for a sick sister. And the assassin knows that 
he lies. And in the guilty silence and solitude of his 
own room, with the curtains drawn and the door locked, 
Tom tries the virtues of that magic dye. It gets on his 
fingers and turns them black, to the elbow. It burns 
holes in his handkerchief when he tries to rub the 



40 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

malignant poison off his ebony fingers. He applies it to 
his silky mustache, real camel's hair, very cautiously and 
very tenderly, and with some misgivings. It turns his 
lip so black it makes the room dark. And out of all the 
clouds and the darkness and the sable splotches that 
pall every thing else in Plutonian gloom, that mustache 
smiles out, grinning like some ghastly hirsute specter, 
gleaming like the moon through a rifted storm cloud, 
unstained, untainted, unshaded ; a natural, incorruptible 
blonde. That is the last time anybody fools Tom on 
hair dye. 

The eye he has for immaculate linen and faultless 
collars. How it amazes his mother and sisters to learn 
that there isn't a shirt in the house fit for a pig to wear, 
and that he wouldn't wear the best collar in his room to 
be hanged in. 

And the boots he crowds his feet into ! A Sunday- 
school room, the Sunday before the pic-nic or the 
Christmas tree, with its sudden influx of new scholars, 
with irreproachable morals and ambitious appetites, 
doesn't compare with the overcrowded condition of those 
boots. Too tight in the instep; too narrow at the toes; 
too short at both ends ; the only things about those boots 
that don't hurt him, that don't fill his very soul with 
agony, are the straps. When Tom is pulling them on, 
he feels that if somebody would kindly run over him 
three or four times, with a freight train, the sensation 
would be pleasant and reassuring and tranquilizing. 
The air turns black before his starting eyes, there is a 
roaring like the rush of many waters in his ears, he tugs 
at the straps that are cutting his fingers in two and pull- 
ing his arms out by the roots, and just before his blood- 
shot eyes shoot clear out of his head, the boot comes on — 
or the straps pull off. Then when he stands up, the 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 41 

earth rocks beneath his feet, and he thinks he can faintly 
hear the angels calling him home. And when he walks 
across the floor the first time his standing in the church 
and the Christian community is ruined forever. Or 
would be if any one could hear what he says. He 
never, never, never gets to be so old that he can not remem- 
ber those boots, and if it is seventy years afterward his 
feet curl up in agony at the recollection. The first time 
he wears them, he is vaguely aware, as he leaves his 
room that there is a kind of "fixy " look about him, and 
his sisters' tittering is not needed to confirm this impres- 
sion. He has a certain, half- defined impression that 
every thing he has on is a size too small for any other 
man of his size. That his boots are a trifle snug, like a 
house with four rooms for a family of thirty - seven. 
That the hat which sits so lightly on the crown of his 
head is jaunty but limited, like a junior clerk's salary; 
that his gloves are a neat fit, and can't be buttoned with 
a stump machine. Tom doesn't know all this : he has 
only a general, vague impression that it may be so. And 
he doesn't know that his sisters know every line of it. 
For he has lived many years longer, and got in ever so 
much more trouble, before he learns that one bright, 
good, sensible girl — and I believe they are all that — 
will see and notice more in a glance, remember it more 
accurately, and talk more about it, than twenty men can 
see. in a week. Tom does not know, for his crying feet 
will not let him, how he gets from his room to the earthly 
paradise where Laura lives. Nor does he know, after he 
gets there, that Laura sees him trying to rest one foot by 
setting it up on the heel. And she sees him sneak it 
back under his chair and tilt it up on the toe for a 
change. She sees him ease the other foot a little by 
tugging the heel of the boot at the leg of the chair. A 



42 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

r 

hazardous, reckless, presumptuous experiment. Tom 
tries it so far one night, and slides his heel so far up the 
leg of his boot, that his foot actually feels comfortable, 
and he thinks the angels must be rubbing it. He walks 
out of the parlor sideways that night, trying to hide the 
cause of the sudden elongation of one leg, and he hob- 
bles all the way home in the same disjointed condition. 
But Laura sees that too. She sees all the little knobs 
and lumps on his foot, and sees him fidget and fuss, she 
sees the look of anguish flitting across his face under the 
heartless, deceitful, veneering of smiles, and she makes 
the mental remark that master Tom would feel much 
happier, and much more comfortable, and more like 
staying longer, if he had worn his father's boots. 

But on his way to the house, despite the distraction of 
his crying feet, how many pleasant, really beautiful, 
romantic things Tom thinks up and recollects and com- 
piles and composes to say to Laura, to impress her with 
his originality, and wisdom, and genius, and bright exu- 
berant fancy and general superiority over all the rest of 
Tom kind. Real earnest things, you know ; no hollow, 
conventional compliments, or nonsense, but such things, 
Tom flatters himself, as none of the other fellows can or 
will say. And he has them all in beautiful order when 
he gets at the foot of the hill. The remark about the 
weather, to begin with ; not the stereotyped old phrase, 
but a quaint, droll, humorous conceit that no one in the 
world but Tom could think of. Then, after the opening 
overture about the weather, something about music and 
Beethoven's sonata in B flat, and Haydn's symphonies, 
and of course something about Beethoven's grand old 
Fifth symphony, somebody's else mass, in heaven knows 
how many flats ; and then something about art, and a 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 43 

profound thought or two on science and philosophy, and 
so on to poetry and from poetry to "business." 

But alas, when Tom reaches the gate, all these well 
ordered ideas display evident symptoms of breaking up ; 
as he crosses the yard, he is dismayed to know that they 
are in the convulsions of a panic, and when he touches 
the bell knob, every, each, all and several of the ideas, 
original and compiled, that he has .had on any subject 
during the past ten years, forsake him and return no 
more that evening. When Laura opened the door he 
had intended to say something real splendid about the 
imprisoned sunlight of something, beaming out a welcome 
upon the what you may call it of the night or something. 
Instead of which he says, or rather gasps : " Oh, yes, to 
be sure; to be sure; ho." And then, conscious that he 
has not said anything particularly brilliant or original, or 
that most any of the other fellows could not say with a 
little practice, he makes one more effort to redeem him- 
self before he steps into the hall, and adds, "Oh, good 
morning; good morning." Feeling that even this is only 
a partial success, he collects his scattered faculties for 
one united effort and inquires : " How is your mother ? " 
And then it -strikes him that he has about exhausted the 
subject, and he goes into the parlor, and sits down, and 
just as soon as he has placed his reproachful feet in the 
least agonizing position, he proceeds to wholly, com- 
pletely and successfully forget everything he ever knew 
in his life. He returns to consciousness to find himself, 
to his own amazement and equally to Laura's bewilder- 
ment, conducting a conversation about the crops, and a 
new method of funding the national debt, subjects upon 
which he is about as well informed as the town clock. 
He rallies, and makes a successful effort to turn the con- 



44 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

versation into literary channels by asking her if she has 
read " Daniel Deronda," and wasn't it odd that George 
Washington Eliot should name her heroine " Grenadine," 
after a dress pattern ? And in a burst of confidence he 
assures her that he would not be amazed if it should rain 
before morning, (and he hopes it will, and that it may be 
a flood, and that he may get caught in it, without an ark 
nearer than Cape Horn.) And so, at last, the first even- 
ing passes away, and after mature deliberation and many 
unsuccessful efforts he rises to go. But he does not go. 
He wants to; but he doesn't know how. He says good 
evening. Then he repeats it in a marginal reference.. 
Then he puts it in a foot note. Then he adds the remark 
in an appendix, and shakes hands. By this time he gets 
as far as the parlor door, and catches hold of the knob 
and holds on to it as tightly as though some one on the 
other side were trying to pull it through the door and run 
away with it. And he stands there a fidgetty statue of 
the door holder. He mentions, for not more than the 
twentieth time that evening that he is passionately fond 
of music but he can't sing. Which is a lie ; he can. 
Did she go to the Centennial ? "No." "Such a pity" 
— he begins, but stops in terror, lest she may consider his 
condolence a reflection upon her financial standing. Did 
he go ? Oh, yes ; yes ; he says, absently, he went. Or, 
that is to say, no, not exactly. He did not exactly go to 
the Centennial ; he staid at home. In fact, he had not 
been out of town this Summer. Then he looks at the 
tender little face; he looks at the brown eyes, sparkling 
with suppressed merriment ; he looks at the white hands, 
dimpled and soft, twin daughters of the snow; and the 
fairy picture grows more lovely as he looks at it, until his 
heart outruns his fears; he must speak, he must say some- 
thing impressive and ripe with meaning, for how can he 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 45 

go away with this suspense in his breast? His heart 
trembles as does his hand ; his quivering lips part, and 
— Laura deftly hides a . vagrom yawn behind her fan. 
Good night, and Tom is gone. 

There is a dejected droop to the mustache that night, 
when in the solitude of his own room Tom releases his 
hands from the despotic gloves, and tenderly soothes two 
of the reddest, puffiest feet that ever crept out of boots 
not half their own size, and swore in mute, but eloquent 
anatomical profanity at the whole race of bootmakers. 
And his heart is nearly as full of sorrow and bitterness 
as his boots. It appears to him that he showed off to 
the worst possible advantage ; he is dimly conscious that 
he acted very like a donkey, and he has the not entirely 
unnatural impression that she will never want to see him 
again. And so he philosophically and manfully makes 
up his mind never, never, never, to think of her again. 
And then he immediately proceeds, in the manliest and 
most natural way in the world, to think of nothing and 
nobody else under the sun for the next ten hours. How 
the tender little face does haunt him. He pitches him- 
self into bed with an aimless recklessness that tumbles 
pillows, bolster, and sheets into one shapeless, wild, 
chaotic mass, and he goes through the motions of going 
to sleep, like a man who would go to sleep by steam. 
He stands his pillow up on end, and pounds it 'into a 
wad, and he props his head upon it as though it were the 
guillotine block. He lays it down and smooths it out 
level, and pats all the wrinkles out of it, and there is 
more sleeplessness in it to the square inch than there is 
in the hungriest mosquito that ever sampled a martyr's 
blood. He gets up and smokes like a patent stove, 
although not three hours ago he told Laura that he 
de - tes - ted tobacco. 



46 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

This is the only time Tom will ever go through this, in 
exactly this way. It is the one rare golden experience, 
the one bright, rosy dream of his life. He may live to 
be as old as an army overcoat, and he may marry as 
many wives as Brigham Young, singly, or in a cluster, 
but this will come to him but once. Let him enjoy all 
the delightful misery, all the ecstatic wretchedness, all 
the heavenly forlornness of it as best he can. And he 
does take good, solid, edifying misery out of it. How he 
does torture himself and hate Smith, the empty headed 
donkey, who can talk faster than poor Tom can think, 
and whose mustache is black as Tom's boots, and so long 
that he can pull one end of it with both hands. And how 
he does detest that idiot Brown, who plays and sings, and 
goes up there every time Tom does, and claws over a few 
old forgotten five-finger exercises and calls it music ; who 
comes up there, some night when Tom thinks he has the 
evening and Laura all to himself, and brings up an old, 
tuneless, voiceless, cracked guitar, and goes crawling 
around in the wet grass under the windows and makes 
night perfectly hideous with what he calls a serenade. 
And he speaks French, too, the beast. Poor Tom ; when 
Brown's lingual accomplishments in the language of 
Charlemagne are confined to -"aw — aw — er ah — 
vooly voo ? " and on state occasions to the additional 
grandeur of "avy voo mong shapo?" But poor Tom 
who once covered himself with confusion by telling 
Laura that his favorite in " Robert le Diable " was the 
beautiful aria, " Robert toy que jam," considers Brown a 
very prodigal in linguistic attainments ; another Cardinal 
Mezzofanti; and hates him for it accordingly. And he 
hates Daubs, the artist, too, who was up there one even- 
ing and made an off hand crayon sketch of her in an 
album. The picture looked much more like Daubs' 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 47 

mother, and Tom knew it, but Laura said it was oh just 
delightfully, perfectly splendid, and Tom has hated 
Daubs most cordially ever since. In fact, Tom hates 
every man who has the temerity to speak to her, or 
whom she* may treat with lady-like courtesy. Until 
there comes one night when the boots of the inquisition 
pattern sit more lightly on their suffering victims. When 
Providence has been on Tom's side and has kept Smith 
and Daubs and Brown away, and has frightened Tom 
nearly to death by showing him no one in the little 
parlor with its old-fashioned furniture but himself and 
Laura and the furniture. When, almost without know- 
ing how or why, they talk about life and its realities 
instead of the last concert or the next lecture; when they 
talk of their plans, and their day dreams and aspirations, 
and their ideals of real men and women ; when they talk 
about the heroes and heroines of days long gone by, grey 
and dim in the ages that are ever made young and new 
by the lives of noble men and noble women who lived, 
and did, and never died in those grand old days, but 
lived and live on, as imperishable and fadeless in their 
glory as the glittering stars that sang at creation's dawn. 
When the room seems strangely silent when their voices 
hush ; when the flush of earnestness upon her face gives 
it a tinge of sadness that makes it more beautiful than 
ever; when the dream and picture of a home Eden, and 
home life, and home love, grows every moment more 
lovely, more entrancing to him until at last poor blun- 
dering, stupid Tom, speaks without knowing what he is 
going to say, speaks without preparation or rehearsal, 
speaks, and his honest, natural, manly heart touches his 
faltering lips with eloquence and tenderness and earnest- 
ness that all the rhetoric in the world never did and 
never will inspire, and -. That is all we know about 



4 8 

it. Nobody knows what is said or how it is done. 
Nobody. Only the silent stars or the whispering leaves, 
or the cat, or maybe Laura's younger brother, or the 
hired girl, who generally bulges in just as Tom reaches 
the climax. All the rest of us know about it is', that Tom 
doesn't come away so early that night, and that when he 
reaches the door he holds a pair of dimpled hands 
instead of the insensate door knob. He never clings to 
that door knob again ; never. Unless ma, dear ma, has 
been so kind as to bring in her sewing and spend the 
evening with them. And Tom doesn't hate anybody, 
nor want to kill anybody in the wide, wide world, and he 
feels just as good as though he had just come out of a 
six months' revival ; and is happy enough to borrow 
money of his worst enemy. 

But, there, is no rose without a thorn. Although, I 
suppose, on an inside computation, there is, in this weary 
old world as much as, say a peck, or a peck and a half 
possibly, of thorns without their attendant roses. Just 
the raw, bare thorns. In the highest heaven of his 
newly found bliss, Tom is suddenly recalled to earth and 
its miseries by a question from Laura which falls like a 
plummet into the unrippled sea of the young man's hap- 
piness, and fathoms its depths in the shallowest place. 
" Has her own Tom " — as distinguished from countless 
other Toms, nobody's Toms, unclaimed Toms, to all 
intents and purposes swamp lands on the public matri- 
monial domain — "Has her own Tom said anything to 
pa?" "Oh, yes! pa;" Tom says, "To be sure; yes." 
Grim, heavy browed, austere pa. The living embodi- 
ment of business. Wiry, shrewd, the life and mainspring 
of the house of Tare and Tret. "'M. Well. N' no," 
Tom had not exactly, as you might say, poured out his 
heart to pa. Somehow or other he had a rose-colored 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



49 



idea that the thing was going to go right along in this 
way forever. Tom had an idea that the programme was 
all arranged, printed and distributed, rose-colored, gilt- 
edged, and perfumed. He was going to sit and hold 
Laura's hands, pa was to stay down at the office, and ma 
was to make her visits to the parlor as much like angels', 
for their rarity and brevity, as possible. But he sees, 
now that the matter has been referred to, that it is a 
grim necessity. And Laura doesn't like to see such a 
spasm of terror pass over Tom's face; and her coral lips 
quiver a little as she hides her flushed face out of sight 
on Tom's shoulder, and tells him how kind and tender 
pa has always been with her, until Tom feels positively 
jealous of pa. And she tells him that he must not dread 
going to see him, for pa will be oh so glad to know how 
happy, happy, happy he can make his little girl. And 
as she talks of him, the hard working, old-fashioned, 
tender- hearted old man, who loves his girls as though he 
were yet only a big boy, her heart grows tenderer, and 
she speaks so earnestly and eloquently that Tom, at first 
savagely jealous of him, is persuaded to fall in love with 
the old gentleman — he calls him "Pa," too, now,— him- 
self. 

But by the following afternoon this feeling is very faint. 
And when he enters the counting room of Tare & Tret, 
and stands before pa — Oh, land of love, how could 
Laura ever talk so about such a man. Stubbly little pa; 
with a fringe of the most obstinate and wiry gray hair 
standing all around his bald, bald head; the wiriest, 
grizzliest mustache bristling under his nose ; a tuft of 
tangled beard under the sharp chin, and a raspy under- 
growth of a week's run on the thin jaws ; business, busi- 
ness, business, in every line of the hard, seamed face, and 
profit and loss, barter and trade, dicker and bargain, in 



50 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

every movement of the nervous hands. Pa; old business ! 
He puts down the newspaper a little way, and looks over 
the top of it as Tom announces himself, glancing at the 
young man with a pair of blue eyes that peer through 
old - fashioned iron - bowed spectacles, that look as though 
they had known these eyes and done business with them 
ever since they wept over their A B C's or peeped into 
the tall stone jar Sunday afternoon to look for the dough- 
nuts. 

Tom, who had felt all along there could be no inspira- 
tion on his part in this scene, has come prepared. At 
least he had his last true statement at his tongue's end 
when he entered the counting room. But now, it seems 
to him that if he had been brought up in a circus, and 
Cradled inside of a sawdust ring, and all his life trained 
to twirl his hat, he couldn't do it better, nor faster, nor 
be more utterly incapable of doing anything else. At 
last he swallows a lump in his throat as big as a ballot 
box, and faintly gasps, " Good morning." Mr. Tret 
hastens to recognize him. " Eh ? oh ; yes ; yes ; yes ; I 
see ; young Bostwick, from Dope & Middlerib's. Oh yes. 
Well — ? " "I have come, sir," gasps Tom, thinking all 
around the world from Cook's explorations to " Captain 
Riley's Narrative," for the first line of that speech that 
Tare & Tret have just scared out of him so completely 
that he doesn't believe he ever knew a word of it. " I 
have come — " and he thinks if his lips didn't get so dry 
and hot they make his teeth ache, that he could get 
along with it; "I have, sir, — come, Mr. Tret; Mr. Tret, 
sir — I have come — I am come — " " Yes, ye-es," says 
Mr. Tret, in the wildest bewilderment, but in no very 
encouraging tones, thinking the young man probably 
wants to borrow money ; " Ye-es ; I see you've come. 
Well ; that's all right ; glad to see you. Yes, you've 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 5 I 

come?" Tom's hat is now making about nine hundred 
and eighty revolutions per minute, and apparently not 
running up to half its full capacity. " Sir ; Mr. Tret," he 
resumes, " I have come, sir; Mr. Tret — I am here to — 
to sue — to sue, Mr. Tret — I am here to sue — " "Sue, 
eh ? " the old man echoes sharply, with a belligerent 
rustle of the newspaper; "sue Tare & Tret, eh? Well, 
that's right, young man ; that's right. Sue, and get dam- 
ages. We'll give you all the law you want." Tom's 
head is so hot, and his heart is so cold, that he thinks 
they must be about a thousand miles apart. " Sir," he 
explains, " that isn't it. It isn't that. I only want to 
ask — I have long known — Sir," he adds, as the open- 
ing lines of his speech come to him like a message from 
heaven, " Sir, you have a flower, a tender lovely blossom; 
chaste as the snow that crowns the mountain's brow; 
fresh as the breath of morn ; lovelier than the rosy- 
fingered hours that fly before Aurora's car ; pure as the 
lily kissed by dew. This precious blossom, watched by 
your paternal eyes, the object of your tender care and 
solicitude, I ask of you. I would wear it in my heart, and 
guard and cherish it — #nd in the — " " Oh-h, ye-es, yes, 
yes," the old man says soothingly, beginning to see that 
Tom is only drunk, " Oh yes, yes, I don't know much 
about them myself; my wife and the girls generally keep 
half the windows in the house littered up with them, 
Winter and Summer, every window so full of house 
plants the sun can't shine in. Come up to the house, 
they'll give you all you can carry away, give you a hat 
full of 'em." " No, no, no; you don't understand," says 
poor Tom, and old Mr.Tret now observes that Tom is very 
drunk indeed. " It isn't that, sir. Sir, that isn't it. I — 
I — I want to marry your daughter! " And there it is at 
last, as bluntly as though Tom had wadded it into a gun 



52 RISE AND FALL 0*F THE MUSTACHE, 

and shot it at the old man. Mr. Tret does not say any- 
thing for twenty seconds. Tom tells Laura that evening 
that it was two hours and a half before her father opened 
his head. Then he says, "Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes; to be 
sure;, to — be — sure." And then the long pause is 
dreadful. " Yes, yes. Well, I don't know. I don't know 
about that, young man. Said any thing to Jennie about 
it ? " " It isn't Jennie," Tom gasps, seeing a new Rubicon 

to cross ; " its " " Oh, Julie, eh ? well, I don't " 

" No, sir," interjects the despairing Tom, " it isn't Julie, 

it's " "Sophie, eh? Oh, well, Sophie " "Sir/' 

says Tom, " If you please, sir, it isn't Sophie, its " 

"Not Minnie, surely? Why, Minnie is hardly — well, I 

don't know. Young folks get along faster than " 

" Dear Mr. Tret," breaks in the distracted lover, " it's 
Laura." 

As they sit and stand there, looking at each other, 
the dingy old counting- room, with the heavy shadows 
lurking in every corner, with its time-worn, heavy brown 
furnishings, with the scanty dash of sunlight breaking in 
through the dusty window, looks like an old Rubens 
painting; the beginning and the finishing of a race: the 
old man, nearly ready to lay his armor off, glad to be so 
nearly and so safely through with the race and the fight 
that Tom, in all his inexperience and with all the rash 
enthusiasm and conceit of a young man, is just getting 
ready to run and fight, or fight and run, you never can 
tell which until he is through with it. And the old man, 
looking at Tom, and through him, and past him, feels 
his old heart throb almost as quickly as does that of the 
young man before him. For looking down a long vista 
of happy, eventful years, bordered with roseate hopes and 
bright dreams and anticipations, he sees a tender face, 
radiant with smiles and kindled with blushes ; he feels a 




DIFFICULT BUSINESS. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 55 

soft hand drop into his own with its timid pressure; he 
"sees the vision open, under the glittering summer stars, 
down mossy hillsides, where the restless breezes, sighing 
through the rustling leaves, whispered their tender secret 
to the noisy katydids; strolling along the winding paths, 
deep in the bending wild grass, down in the star-lit aisles 
of the dim old woods ; loitering where the meadow 
brook sparkles over the white pebbles or murmurs around 
the great flat stepping-stones; lingering on the rustic 
foot-bridge, while he gazes into eyes eloquent and tender 
in their silent love-light; up through the long pathway 
of years, flecked and checkered with sunshine and cloud, 
with storm and calm, through years of struggle, trial, 
sorrow, disappointment, out at last into the grand, glo- 
rious, crowning beauty and benison of hard-won and 
well-deserved success, until he sees now this second 
Laura, re-imaging her mother as she was in the dear old 
days. And he rouses from his dream with a start, and 
he tells Tom he'll " Talk it over with Mrs. Tret, and see 
him again in the morning." 

And so they are duly and formally engaged ; and the 
very first thing they do, they make the very sensible, 
though very uncommon, resolution to so .conduct them- 
selves that no one will ever suspect it. And they succeed 
admirably. No one ever does suspect it. They come 
into church in time to hear the benediction — every time 
they come together. They shun all other people when 
church is dismissed, and are seen to go home alone the 
longest way. At pic-nics they are missed not more than 
fifty times a day, and are discovered sitting under a tree, 
holding each other's hands, gazing into each other's eyes 
and saying — nothing. When he throws her shawl over 
her shoulders, he never looks at what he is doing, but 
looks straight into her starry eyes, throws the shawl right 



56 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

over her natural curls, and drags them out by the hair- 
pins. If, at sociable or festival, they are left alone in a 
dressing-room a second and a half, Laura emerges with 
her ruffle standing around like a railroad accident; and 
Tom has enough complexion on his shoulder to go 
around a young ladies' seminary. When they drive out, 
they sit in a buggy with a seat eighteen inches wide, and 
there is two feet of unoccupied room at either end of it. 
Long years afterward, when they drive, a street car isn't 
too wide for them; and when they walk, you could drive 
four loads of hay between them. 

And yet, as carefully as they guard their precious little 
secret, and as cautious and circumspect as they are in 
th:i. .-. . • and behavior, it gets talked around that they 
are engaged. People are so prying and suspicious. 

And so the months of their engagement run on; never 
before, or since, time flies so swiftly — unless, it may be, 
some time when Tom has an acceptance in bank to meet 
in two days, that he can't lift one end of — and the wed- 
ding day dawns, fades, and the wedding is over. Over, 
with its little circle of delighted friends, with its ripples 
of pleasure and excitement, with its touches of home 
love and home life, that leave their lasting impress upon 
Laura's heart, although Tom, with man-like blindness, 
never sees one of them. Over, with ma, with the thou- 
sand and one anxieties attendant on the grand event in 
her daughter's life hidden away under her dear old 
smiling face, down, away down under the tender, glisten- 
ing eyes, deep in the loving heart; ma, hurrying here 
and fluttering there, in the intense excitement of some- 
thing strangely made up of happiness and grief, of 
apprehension and hope; ma, with her sudden disappear- 
ances and flushed reappearances, indicating struggles 
and triumphs in the turbulent world down stairs; ma, 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 57 

with the new-fangled belt, with the dinner-plate buckles, 
fastened on wrong side foremost, and the flowers dangling 
down the wrong side of her head, to Sophie's intense 
horror and pantomimic telegraphy ; ma, flying here and 
there, seeing that every thing is going right, from kitchen 
to dressing-rooms; looking after everything and every- 
body, with her hands and heart just as full as they will 
hold, and more voices calling " ma," from every room in 
the house, than you would think one hundred mas could 
answer. But she answers them all, and she sees after 
'everything, and just in the nick of time prevents Mr. 
Tret from going down stairs and attending the ceremony 
in a loud-figured dressing-gown and green slippers ; ma, 
who, with the quivering lip and glistening eyes, has to be 
cheerful, and lively, and smiling; because, if, as she 
thinks of the dearest and best of her flock going away 
from her fold, to put her life and her happiness into 
another's keeping, she gives way for one moment, a dozen 
reproachful voices cry out, "Oh-h ma!" How it all 
comes back to Laura, like the tender shadows of a dream, 
long years after the dear, dear face, furrowed with marks 
of patient suffering and loving care, rests under the snow 
and the daisies ; when the mother love that glistened in 
the tender eyes has closed in darkness on the dear old 
home; and the nerveless hands, crossed in dreamless 
sleep upon the pulseless breast, can never again touch 
the children's heads with caressing gesture; how the 
sweet vision comes to Laura, as it shone on her wedding 
morn, rising in tenderer beauty through the blinding 
tears her own excess of happiness calls up, as the rain- 
bow spans the cloud only through the mingling of the 
golden sunshine and the falling rain. 

And pa, dear old shabby pa, whose clothes will not fit 
him as they fit other men; who always dresses just a 



58 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

year and a half behind the style; pa, wandering up and 
down through the house, as though he were lost' in his 
own home, pacing through the hall like a sentinel, blun- 
dering aimlessly and listlessly into rooms where he has 
no business, and being repelled therefrom by a chorus of 
piercing shrieks and hysterical giggling; pa, getting off 
his well worn jokes with an assumption of merriment 
that seems positively real; pa, who creeps away by him- 
self once in a while, and leans his face against the 
window, and sighs, in direct violation of all strict house- 
hold regulations, right against the glass, as he thinks of 
his little girl going away to-day from the home whose 
love and tenderness and patience she has known so well. 
Only yesterday, it seems to him, the little baby girl, 
bringing the first music of baby prattle into his home; 
then a little girl in short dresses, with school-girl troubles 
and school-girl pleasures; then an older little girl, out 
of school and into society, but a little girl to pa still. 

And then . But, somehow, this is as far as pa can 

get; for he sees, in the flight of this, the first, the follow- 
ing flight of the other fledglings; and he thinks how 
silent and desolate the old nest will be when they have 
all mated and flown away. He thinks, when their flight 
shall have made other homes bright and cheery and 
sparkling, with music and prattle and laughter, how it 
will leave the old home hushed and quiet and still. How, 
in the long, lonesome afternoons, mother will sit by the 
empty cradle that rocked them all, murmuring the sweet 
old cradle songs that brooded over all their sleep, until 
the rising tears check the swaying cradle and choke the 
song — and back, over river and prairie and mountain, 
that roll and stretch and rise between the old home and 
the new ones, comes back the prattle of her little ones, 
the rippling music of their laughter, the tender cadences 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 6 X 

of their songs, until the hushed old home is haunted by- 
memories of its children — gray and old they may be, 
with other children clustering about their knees; but to 
the dear old home they are "the children" still. And 
dreaming thus, when pa for a moment finds his little girl 
alone — his little girl who is going away out of the home 
whose love she knows, into a home whose tenderness 
and patience are all untried — he holds her in his arms and 
whispers the most fervent blessing that ever throbbed 
from a father's heart; and Laura's wedding day would be 
incomplete and unfeeling without her tears. So is the 
pattern of our life made up of smiles and tears, shadow 
and sunshine. Tom sees none of these background 
pictures of the wedding day. He sees none of its real, 
heartfelt earnestness. He sees only the bright, sunny 
tints and happy figures that the tearful, shaded back- 
ground throws out in golden relief; but never stops to 
think that, without the shadows, the clouds, and the 
somber tints of the background, the picture would be 
flat, pale, and lusterless. 

And then, the presents. The assortment of brackets, 
serviceable, ornamental and — cheap. The French clock, 
that never went, that does not go, that never will go. 
And the nine potato mashers. The eight mustard spoons. 
The three cigar stands. Eleven match safes ; assorted 
patterns. A dozen tidies, charity fair styles, blue dog on 
a yellow background, barking at a green boy climbing 
over a red fence, after seal brown apples. The two 
churns, old pattern, straight handle and dasher, and they 
have as much thought of keeping a cow as they have of 
keeping a section of artillery. Five things they didn't 
know the names of, and never could find any body who 
could tell what they were for. And a nickel plated 
pocket corkscrew, that Tom, in a fine burst of indigna- 



62 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

tion, throws out of the window, which Laura says is just 
like her own impulsive Tom. And not long after her 
own impulsive Tom catches his death of cold and ruins 
the knees of his best trowsers crawling around in the 
wet grass hunting for that same corkscrew. Which is 
also just like her own impulsive Tom. 

And then, the young people go to work and buy 
e-v-e-r-y thing they need, the day they go to housekeep- 
ing. Every thing. Just as well, Tom says, to get every 
thing at once and have it delivered right up at the house, 
as to spend five or six or ten or twenty years in stocking 
up a house, as his father did. And Laura thinks so too, 
and she wonders that Tom should know so much more 
than his father. This worries Tom himself, when he 
thinks of it, and he never rightly understands how it is, 
until he is forty - five or fifty years old and has a Tom 
of his own to direct and advise him. So they make out a 
list, and revise it, and rewrite it, until they have every 
thing down, complete, and it isn't until supper is ready 
the first day, that they discover there isn't a knife, a 
fork, or a plate or a spoon in the new house. And the 
first day the washerwoman comes, and the water is hot, 
and the clothes are all ready, it is discovered that there 
isn't a wash- tub nearer than the grocery. And further 
along in the day the discovery is made that while Tom 
has bought a clothes line that will reach to the north pole 
and back, and then has to be coiled up a mile or two in 
the back yard, there isn't a clothes pin in the settlement. 
And in the course of a week or two, Tom slowly awakens 
to the realization of the fact that he has only begun to 
get. And if he should live two thousand years, which 
he rarely does, and possibly may not, he would think, 
just before he died, of something they had wanted the 
worst way for five centuries, and had either been too poor 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



63 



to get, or Tom had always forgotten to bring up. So 
long as he lives, Tom goes on bringing home things that 
they need — absolute, simple necessities, that were never 
so much as hinted at in that exhaustive list. And old 
Time comes along, and knowing that the man in that 
new house will never get through bringing things up to it, 
helps him out and comes around and brings things, too. 
Brings a gray hair now and then, to stick in Tom's mus- 
tache, which has grown too big to be ornamental, and 
too wayward and unmanageable to be comfortable. He 
brings little cares and little troubles, and little trials and 
little butcher bills, and little grocer's bills, and little 
tailor bills, and nice large millinery bills, that pluck at 
Tom's mustache and stroke it the wrong way and make 
it look more and more as pa's did the first time Tom 
saw it. He brings, by and by, the prints of baby fingers 
and pats them around on the dainty wall paper. Brings, 
some times, a voiceless messenger that lays its icy fingers 
on the baby lips, and hushes their dainty prattle, and in 
the baptism of its first sorrow, the darkened little home 
has its dearest and tenderest tie to the upper fold. 
Brings, by and by, the tracks of a boy's muddy boots, 
and scatters them all up and down the clean porch. 
Brings a messenger, one day, to take the younger Tom 
away to college. And the quiet the boy leaves behind 
him is so much harder to endure than his racket, that 
old Tom is tempted to keep a brass hand in the house 
until the boy comes back. But old Time brings him 
home at last, and it does make life seem terribly real 
and earnest to Tom, and how the old laugh rings out 
and ripples all over Laura's face, when they see old 
Tom's first mustache budding and struggling into second 
life on young Tom's face. 

And still old Time comes round, bringing each year 



64 - RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

whiter frosts to scatter on the whitening mustache, and 
brighter gleams of silver to glint the brown of Laura's 
hair. Bringing the blessings of peaceful old age and a 
lovelocked home to crown these noble, earnest, real human 
lives, bristling with human faults, marred with human 
mistakes, scarred and seamed and rifted with human 
troubles, and crowned with the compassion that only per- 
fection can send upon imperfection. Comes, with happy 
memories of the past, and quiet confidence for the future. 
Comes, with the changing scenes of day and night ; with 
winter's storm and summer's calm ; comes, with the 
sunny peace and the backward dreams of age; comes, 
until one day, the eye of the relentless old reaper rests 
upon old Tom, standing right in the swarth, amid the 
golden corn. The sweep of the noiseless scythe that 
never turns its edge, Time passes on, old Tom steps 
out of young Tom's way, and the cycle of a life is 
complete. 







GETTING READY FOR THE TRAIN. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



GETTING READY FOR THE TRAIN. 



WHEN they reached the depot, Mr. Man and 
his wife gazed in unspeakable disappointment 
at the receding train, which was just pulling away from 
the bridge switch at the rate of a thousand miles a 
minute. Their first impulse was to run after it; but as 
the train was out of sight, and whistling for Sagetown 
before they could act upon the impulse, they remained 
in the carriage and disconsolately turned the horses' 
heads homeward. 

"It all comes of having to wait for a woman to get 
ready," Mr. Man broke the silence with, very grimly. 

"I was ready before you were," replied his wife. 

"Great heavens!" cried Mr. Man,' in irrepressible 
impatience, jerking the horses' jaws out of place, " just 
listen to that! And I sat out in the buggy ten minutes, 
yelling at you to come along, until the whole neighbor- 
hood heard me ! " 

" Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Man, with the provoking pla- 
cidity which no one can assume but a woman, " and every 
time I started down stairs you sent me back for some- 
thing you had forgotten." 

Mr. Man groaned. "This is too much to bear," he 

said, "when everybody knows that if I was going to 

Europe, I would just rush into the house, put on a clean 

shirt, grab up my gripsack, and fly; while you would 

want at least six months for preliminary preparations, 

and then dawdle around the whole day of starting until 

every train had left town." 
3* 



68 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Well, the upshot of the matter was, that the Mans put 
off their visit to Peoria until the next week, and it was 
agreed that each one should get ready and go down to 
the train and go, and the one who failed to get ready 
should be left. The day of the match came around in 
due time. The train was to go at 10:30, and Mr. Man, 
after attending to his business, went home at 9:45. 

"Now then," he shouted, "only three-quarters of an 
hour to train time. Fly around; a fair field and no 
favors, you know." 

And away they flew. Mr. Man bulged into this room 
and rushed through that one, and dived into one closet 
after another with inconceivable rapidity, chuckling under 
his breath all the time, to think how cheap Mrs. Man 
would feel when he started off alone. He stopped on 
his way up stairs to pull off his heavy boots, to save 
time. For the same reason he pulled off his coat as he 
ran through the dining-room, and hung it on the corner 
of the silver closet. Then he jerked off his vest as he 
rushed through the hall, and tossed it on a hook in the 
hat-rack, and by the time he reached his own room he was 
ready to plunge into his clean clothes. He pulled out a 
bureau drawer and began to paw at the things, like a 
Scotch terrier after a rat. 

" Eleanor !" he shrieked, "where are my shirts?" 

" In your bureau drawer," quietly replied Mrs. Man, 
who was standing placidly before a glass, calmly and 
deliberately coaxing a refractory crimp into place. 

"Well, by thunder, they ain't!" shouted Mr. Man, a 
little annoyed. " I've emptied every last thing out of the 
drawer, and there isn't a thing in it that I ever saw before." 

Mrs. Man stepped back a few paces, held her head on 
one side, and after satisfying herself that the crimp would 
do, and would stay where she had put it, replied : 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 69 

"These things scattered around on the floor are all 
mine. Probably you haven't been looking in your own 
drawer." 

"I don't see," testily observed Mr. Man, "why you 
couldn't have put my things out for me, when you had 
nothing else to do all morning." 

"Because," said Mrs. Man, settling herself into an 
additional article of raiment with awful deliberation, 
" nobody put mine out for me. *A fair field and no favors/ 
my dear." 

Mr. Man plunged into his shirt like a bull at a red flag. 

" Foul ! " he shouted, in malicious triumph. " No but- 
ton on the neck ! " 

" Because," said Mrs. Man, sweetly, after a deliberate 
stare at the fidgeting, impatient man, during which she 
buttoned her dress and put eleven pins where they would 
do the most good, " because you have got the shirt on 
wrong side out." 

When Mr. Man slid out of that shirt, he began to 
sweat. He dropped the shirt three times before he got 
it on, and while it was over his head he heard the clock 
strike ten. When his head came through he saw Mrs. 
Man coaxing the ends and bows of her neck -tie. 

"Where's my shirt studs? " he cried. 

Mrs. Man went out into- another room and presently 
came back with gloves and hat, and saw Mr. Man empty- 
ing all the boxes he could find in and about the bureau. 
Then she said : 

" In the shirt you just took off/' 

Mrs. Man put on her gloves while Mr. Man hunted up 
and down the room for his cuff buttons. 

" Eleanor," he snarled, at last, " I believe you must 
know where those buttons are." 

" I haven't seen them," said the lady, settling her hat, 



70 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" didn't you lay them down on the window - sill in the 
sitting room last night ? " 

Mr. Man remembered, and he went down stairs on the 
run. He stepped on one of his boots, and was imme- 
diately landed in the hall at the foot of the stairs with 
neatness and dispatch, attended in the transmission with 
more bumps than he could count with a Webb's adder, 
and landing with a bang like the Hellgate explosion. 

" Are you nearly ready, Algernon ? " asked the wife of 
his family, sweetly, leaning over the balusters. 

The unhappy man groaned. "Can't you throw me 
down that other boot?" he asked. 

Mrs. Man pityingly kicked it down to him. 

"My valise?" he inquired, as he tugged away at the 
boot. 

" Up in your dressing room," she answered. 

" Packed ? " 

"I do not know; unless you packed it yourself, prob- 
ably not," she replied, with her hand on the door knob ; 
" I had barely time to pack my own." 

She was passing out of the gate, when the door opened, 
and he shouted : 

" Where in the name of goodness did you put my vest ? 
It has all my money in it ! " 

"You threw it on the hat rack," she called back, 
"good-bye, dear." 

Before she got to the corner of the street she was 
hailed again. 

" Eleanor ! Eleanor ! Eleanor Man ! Did you wear off 
my coat?" 

She paused and^ turned, after signaling the street car 
to stop, and cried, 

"You threw it on the silver closet." 

And the street car engulfed her graceful figure and she 






AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 7 I 

was seen no more. But the neighbors say that they 
' heard Mr. Man charging up and down the house, rush- 
ing out at the front door every now and then, and shriek- 
ing up the deserted streets after the unconscious Mrs. 
Man, to know where his hat was, and where she put the 
valise key, and if she had any clean socks and under- 
shirts, and that there wasn't a linen collar in the house. 
And when he went away at last, he left the kitchen door, 
side door and front door, all the down - stair windows and 
the front gate wide open. And the loungers around the 
depot were somewhat amused just as the train was pull- 
ing out of sight down in the yards, to see a flushed, per- 
spiring man, with his hat on sideways, his vest buttoned 
two buttons too high, his cuffs unbuttoned and neck - tie 
flying and his grip - sack flapping open and shut like a 
demented shutter on a March night, and a door key in 
his hand, dash wildly across the platform and halt in the 
middle of the track, glaring in dejected, impotent, wrath- 
ful mortification at the departing train, and shaking his 
trembling fist at a pretty woman, who was throwing kisses 
at him from the rear platform of the last car. 



72 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



DRIVING THE COW. 



MR. FORBES is a nervous man, and it is not sur- 
prising that when Mrs. Forbes told him the cow 
had got out at the front gate, he was so startled and 
annoyed that he made some disjointed allusions to the 
scene of General Newton's dynamite explosions. When 
he went out the cow was standing very quietly in the 
street, just in front of the gate, chewing her cud, best 
navy, and looking as though she were trying to think of 
something mean to say. Mr. Forbes got around in front 
of her, raised both his hands above his head, and, extend- 
ing his arms, waved them slowly up and down, at the 
same time ejaculating, " Shoo ! shoo, there, I say ! Shoo ! " 
The cow turned her cud over to the other side, and 
gazed at the apparition in some astonishment, and then 
began to back away and maneuver to get around it. It 
is a remarkable fact, which we have never heard Prof. 
Huxley explain, that a cow is perfectly willing to go in 
any direction save the one in which you attempt to drive 
her. When the cow began to back, Mr. Forbes slowed 
up with his arms and assumed a more coaxing tone. 
When the cow started to make a flank movement off to 
the right, Mr. Forbes kept in front of her by sidling 
across in the same direction, at the same time raising his 
voice and accelerating the movement of his arms. When 
the cow made several cautious diversions and reconnois- 
sances this way and that, Mr. Forbes was compelled to 
keep up a kind of Chinese cotillon, dancing to and fro 
across the road, keeping time with his shuffling feet and 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 75 

waving hands, and the children on their way to school 
gathered in little groups on the sidewalk and viewed the 
spectacle with great interest, alternately cheering the 
cow and encouraging Mr. Forbes, as one side or the other 
would gain a little advantage. When the cow would 
make a short, determined rush, causing Mr. Forbes to 
scuttle across the street, in a perfect whirlwind of dust 
and sticks and a rattling volley of " Hi ! hoo-y. ! shoo, 
there! hoo-y!" the enthusiasm of the audience was 
unbounded. Once, Mr. Forbes got the cow fairly cor- 
nered and headed her right into the gate, but just as the 
gray light of victory fell upon his uplifted face, Mrs. 
Forbes and the hired girl came charging out in mad 
pursuit of a flock of geese that had taken advantage of 
the open gate to stroll in and have a nip at the house 
plants on the back porch. Squacking, whooping and 
screaming, the flying geese' and the pursuing column 
came out like a runaway edition of chaos, and the cow 
gave a snort of terror and turned short upon Mr. Forbes, 
who tossed his hands more wildly and shouted more 
vociferously than ever, and got out of the way with neat- 
ness and dispatch, just as the cow went by with the swift- 
ness of a golden opportunity or a vagrant thought. Mr. 
Forbes' blood was up, and he was bound to head off that 
cow if it was in the power of man. Spurred to intense 
energy, by the derisive shouts of the children, he bent 
his head and picked up his flying feet. They got a pretty 
fair send off, Mr. Forbes and the cow, and as they swept 
up the street, they could look into each other's eyes and 
glare defiance while they spurned the dust with flying 
feet. Mr. Forbes ran until his eyes seemed bursting out 
of his head and his very soul seemed to be in his legs; 
the perspiration started out of every pore ; every time he 
struck the ground with his foot he thought he felt the 



7 6 

earth shake, and yet, though he tugged and sweat and 
strained until all the landscape was yellow before his 
blood -shot eyes, he couldn't gain a hair's breadth on the 
shambling, awkward cow that went sprawling and kick- 
ing along by his side, filling the soft September air with 
such a wild, tumultuous, horrible jangling of bells that 
Forbes made up his mind to throw the bell away the 
moment he get the cow home. The people on the 
streets stopped and waved their hats and cheered enthu- 
siastically as the procession swept past, ladies leaned out 
of the windows and smiled sweetly on the man and cow 
alike. Once Forbes stumbled over a crossing and had 
to take strides twenty -three feet long for the next half 
block to keep from falling, and he was sure he was split 
clear up to the chin and would have' to button his trousers 
around his neck forever afterward, but he wouldn't give 
in to a cow if he died for it." At the next corner the cow 
turned off down a side street; Forbes shot across the 
sidewalk for a short cut, and the next instant he went 
crashing half way through a latticed tree box. A street 
car driver stopped his car and assisted Mr. Forbes to a 
sitting posture, leaned him up against a fence and went 
on with his train. And as Mr. Forbes sat in a dazed 
kind of way, mechanically rubbing the dust and dirt off 
his coat and pinning up long gashes and grimly grinning 
apertures in his clothes, there came to his ears the dis- 
tant tinkle tankle of a far away cow bell, the mellowed 
sound rising and falling in tender cadences, with a 
dreamy, swaying melody, as though the bell was some- 
where over in the adjoining county, and the cow that 
wore it was waltzing along over a country road a thou- 
sand miles a minute. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 77 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 



MR. JOSKINS is not an old settler in Burlington. 
He came to the city of magnificent hills from 
Keokuk, and after looking around, selected a residence 
out on West Hill, because it was in such a quiet locality, 
and Mr. Joskins loves peace and seclusion. It is a rural 
kind of a neighborhood, and all of Mr. Joskins' neigh- 
bors keep cows. And every cow wears a bell. And 
with an instinct worthy of the Peak family, each neigh- 
bor had selected a cow bell of a different key and tone 
from any of the others, in order that he might know the 
cow of his heart from the other kine of the district. So 
that Mr. Joskins' nights are filled with music, of a rather 
wild, barbaric type ; and the lone starry hours talk noth- 
ing but cow to him, and he has learned so exactly the 
tones of every bell and the habits of each corresponding 
cow, that the voices of the night are not an unintelligi- 
ble jargon to him, but they are full of intelligence, and 
he understands them. It makes it much easier for Mr. 
Joskins, who is a very nervous man, than if he had to 
listen and conjecture and wonder until he was fairly wild, 
as the rest of us would have to do. As it is, when the 
first sweet moments of his slumber are broken by a sol- 
emn, ponderous, resonant 

"Ka-lum, ka-lum, ka-lum!" 

Mr. Joskins knows that the widow Barbery's old crum- 
ple horn is going down the street looking for an open 
front gate, and his knowledge is confirmed by a doleful 
"Ka-lum-pu-lum! " that occurs at regular intervals as 



78 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

old crumple pauses to try each gate as she passes it, for 
she knows that appearances are deceitful, and that a boy 
can shut a front gate in such a way as to thoroughly 
deceive his father and yet leave every catch unfastened. 
Then when Mr. Joskins is called up from his second doze 
by a lively serenade of 

" To - link, to - lank, lank, lankle - inkle, lankle-inkle- 
tekinleinkletelink, kink, kink ! " 

He knows that Mr. Throop's young brindle is in 
Throstlewaite's garden and that Throstlewaite is sailing 
around after her in a pair of slippers and a few clothes. 
And by sitting up in bed Mr. Joskins can hear the things 
that Mr. Throstlewaite is throwing strike against the side 
of the house and the woodshed, thud, spat, bang, and the 
character of the noises tells him whether the missile was 
a clod, a piece of board, or a brick. And when the wind 
down the street is fair, it brings with it faint echoes of 
Mr. Throstlewaite's remarks, which bring into Mr. Jos- 
kins' bedroom the odor of bad grammatical construction 
and wicked wishes and very ill-applied epithets. Then 
when the final crash and tinkle announce that the cow 
has bulged through the front fence and got away, and 
Mr. Joskins turns over to try and get a little sleep, he 
is not surprised, although he is annoyed, to be aroused 
by a sepulchral 

"Klank, klank, klank! " 

Like the chains on the old-fashioned ghost of a mur- 
dered man, for he knows it is Throstlewaite's old duck- 
legged brown cow, going down to the vacant lot on the 
corner to fight anything that gives milk. And he waits 
and listens to the "klank, klank, klank," until it reaches 
the corner and a terrific din and medley of all the cow 
bells on the street tell him all the skirmishers have been 
driven in and the action has become general. And from 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 79 

that on till morning, Mr. Joskyns hears the " tinkle - tan- 
kle " of the little red cow going down the alley to pros- 
pect among the garbage heaps, and the " rankle - tankle, 
rankle - tankle " of the short - tailed black and white cow 
skirmishing down the street ahead of an escort of badly 
assorted dogs, and the " tringle - de - ding, tringle- de- 
ding, ding, ding," of the muley cow that goes along on 
the sidewalk, browsing on the lower limbs of the shade 
trees, and the " klank, klank, klank," of the fighting cow, 
whose bell is cracked in three places, and incessant 
" moo - o - 0<? -ah - ha " of the big black cow that has lost 
the clapper out of her bell and has ever since kept up an 
unintermittent bellowing to supply its loss. And Mr. 
Joskins knows all these cows by their bells, and he knows 
what they are doing and where they are going. And 
although it has murdered his dreams of a quiet home, 
yet it has given him an opportunity to cultivate habits of 
intelligent observation, and it has induced him to register 
a vow that if he is ever rich enough he will keep nine 
cows, trained to sleep all day so as to be ready for duty 
at night, and he will live in the heart of the city with 
them and make them wear four bells apiece just for the 
pleasure of his neighbors. 



8o RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



THE DEMAND FOR LIGHT LABOR. 



ONE morning, just as the rush of house cleaning 
days was beginning to abate, a robust tramp 
called at a house on Barnes Street, and besought the 
inmates to give him something to eat, averring' that he 
had not tasted food for nine days. 

" Why don't you go to work?" asked the lady to whom 
he preferred his petition. 

"Work!" he ejaculated. "Work! And what have I 
been doing ever since the middle of May but hunting 
work ? Who will give me work ? When did I- ever refuse 
work ? " 

"Well," said the woman, " I guess I can give you some 
employment. What can you do?" 

"Anything!" he shouted, in a kind of delirious joy. 
" Anything that any man can do. I'm sick for something 
to fly at. Why, only yesterday I worked all day, carry- 
ing water in an old sieve from Flint River and emptying 
it into the Mississippi, just because I was so tired of 
having nothing to do, that I had to work at something or 
I would have gone ravin' crazy. I'll do anything, from 
cleaning house to building a steamboat. Jest give me 
work, ma'am, an' you'll never hear me ask for bread 
agin." 

The lady was pleased at the willingness and anxiety 
of this industrious man to do something, and she led 
him to the wood pile. 

" Here," she said, " you can saw and split this wood, 
and if you are a good, industrious worker, I will find 
work for you to do, nearly all Winter." 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 8 1 

" Well, now," said the tramp, while a look of disap- 
pointment stole over his 'face, "that's just my luck. 
Only three days ago I was pullin' a blind cow out of a 
well for a poor widow woman who had nothin' in the 
world but that cow to support her, an' I spraint my right 
wrist till I hain't been able to lift a pound with it sinst. 
You kin jest put your hand on it now and feel it throb, 
it's so painful and inflamed. I could jest cry of disap- 
pointment, but it's a Bible fact, ma'am, that I couldn't 
lift that ax above my head ef I died fur it, and I'd jest 
as lief let you pull my arm out by the roots as to try to 
pull that saw through a lath. Jest set me at something 
I kin do, though, if you want to see the dust fly." 

"Very well," said the lady, "then you can take these 
flower beds, which have been very much neglected, and 
weed them very carefully for me. You can do that with 
your well hand, but I want you to be very particular 
with them, and get them very clean, and not injure any 
of the plants, for they are all very choice and I am very 
proud of them." 

The look of disappointment that had been chased 
away from the industrious man's face when he saw a 
prospect of something else to do, came back deeper than 
ever as the lady described the new job, and when she 
concluded, he had to remain quiet for a moment before 
he could control his emotion sufficiently to speak. 

" If I ain't the most onfortnit man in Ameriky," he 
sighed. "I'm jest dyin' for work, crazy to get somethin' 
to do, and I'm blocked out of work at every turn. I jest 
love to work among flowers and dig in the ground, but I 
never dassent do it fur I'm jest blue ruin among the 
posies. Nobody ever cared to teach me anythin' about 
flowers and its a Gospel truth, ma'am, I can't tell a 
violet from a sunflower nor a red rose from a dog fennel. 



82 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Last place I tried to git work at, woman of the house set 
me to work weedin'the garden, an' I worked about a couple 
of hours, monstrous glad to get work, now you bet, an' I 
pulled up every last livin' green thing in that yard. 
Hope I may die ef I didn't. Pulled up all the grass, 
every blade of it. Fact. Pulled up a vine wuth seventy- 
five dollars, that had roots reachin' cl'ar under the cellar 
and into the cistern, and I yanked 'em right up, every 
liber of 'em. Woman was so heart broke when she come 
out and see the yard just as bare as the floor of a brick 
yard that they had to put her to bed. Bible's truth, they 
did, ma'am ; and I had to work for that house three 
months for nothin' and find my board, to pay fur the 
damage I done. Hope to die ef I didn't. Jest gimme 
suthin' I kin do, I'll show you what work is, but I 
wouldn't dare to go foolin' around no flowers. You've 
got a kind heart ma'am, gimme some work; don't send a 
despairin' man away hungry for work." 

" Well," the lady said, " you can beat my carpets for 
me. They have just been taken up, and you can beat 
them thoroughly, and by the time they are done, I will 
have something else ready for you." 

The man made a gesture of despair and sat down on 
the ground, the picture of abject helplessness and disap- 
pointed aspirations. 

" Look at me now," he exclaimed. " What is goin' to 
become o' me ? Did you ever see a man so down on his 
luck like me? I tell you ma'am, you must give me 
somethin' I can do. I wouldn't no more dare for to tech 
them carpets than nothin' in the world. I'd tear 'em to 
pieces. I'm a awful hard hitter, an' the last time I beat 
any carpets was for a woman out at Creston, and I just 
welted them carpets into strings and carpet rags. I 
couldn't help it. I can't hold in my strength. I'm too 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 83 

glad to get to work, that's the trouble with me, ma'am, 
it's a Bible fact. I'll beat them carpets if you say so, but 
I won't be responsible fur 'em ; no makin me work for 
nothin' fur five or six weeks to pay fur tearin 'em into 
slits yer know. I'll go at 'em if you'll say the word and 
take the responsibility, but the fact is, I'm too hard a 
worker to go foolin' around carpets, that's just what I 
am." 

The lady excused the energetic worker from going at 
the carpets, but Was puzzled what to set him at. Finally 
she asked him what there was he would like to do and 
could do, with safety to himself and the work. 

"Well, now," he said, " that's considerit in ye. That's 
real considerit, and I'll take a hold and do something 
that'll give ye the wuth of your money, and won't give 
me no chance to destroy nothin' by workin' too hard at 
it. If ye'll jest kindly fetch me out a rockin' chair, I'll 
set down in the shade and keep the cows from liftin' the 
latch of the front gate and gettin' into the yard. An' 
I'll do it well and only charge you reasonable for it, fur 
the fact is I'm so dead crazy fur work that it isn't big 
pay I want so much as a steady job." 

And when he was rejected and sent forth, jobless and 
b.reakfastless, to wander up and down the cold, unfeeling 
world in search of work, he cast stones at the house and 
said, in dejected tones, 

" There, now, that's just the way. They call us a bad 
lot, and say we're lazy and thieves, and won't work, when 
a feller is just crazy to work and nobody won't give him 
nary job that he kin do. Won't work ! Land alive, they 
won't give us work, an' when we want to an' try to, they 
won't let us work. There ain't a man in Ameriky that 
'ud work as hard an' as stiddy as I would if they'd 
gimme a chance." 



84 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MASTER BILDERBACK RETURNS TO SCHOOL. 



WE remember one day last Summer, during the long 
vacation, when the Hawkeye published a news 
item stating that a boy named Bilderback had fallen from 
the seat of a reaping machine, and got cut to pieces, a 
patient, weary looking, and rather handsome young lady 
called at the office, and appeared to be very anxious to 
have that item verified. And when we gave her all pos- 
sible assurance that everything appearing in that great 
and good paper, the Hawkeye, was necessarily true, she 
drew a deep sigh of relief, and said she felt actually 
thankful she wouldn't have that boy to demoralize the 
school the next term. And then she smiled sweetly, and 
thanked us for our assuring words, and went away. 

Imagine her dismay, then, about the third or fourth 
day of the fall term, when a, terrific cheering in the yard, 
about ten, minutes before school time, drew her to the 
window, whence looking down, she saw every last solitary 
lingering boy in that school district dancing and yelling 
about Master Bilderback, who was dancing higher and 
yelling louder than any other boy in the caucus. Her 
heart sank within her ; but she braced up and went down 
stairs to quiet the bedlam, and in five minutes learned 
the dreadful truth. Master Bilderback had met with a 
reaping-machine accident, but the papers had reported it 
incorrectly. He had climbed into the seat the moment 
his uncle, on whose farm he was spending the vacation, 
got down. He prod Jed one of the horses with a pin in 
the end of a stick, and made the team run away. The 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 85 

terrified animals ran the machine over twenty stumps, 
and mashed it to pieces; one of the horses ran against a 
hedge-stake and was killed, and the other jumped off a 
bridge and broke a leg; Master Bilderback's uncle, 
chasing after the flying team, had dashed through a 
hornets' nest, and the sociable little insects came out and 
sat down on him to talk it over, until his head was 
swelled as big as a nail-keg, and he couldn't open his 
eyes for a week ; a farm-hand who tried to stop the horses 
by rushing out in front of them, was hit by the tongue 
of the reaper and knocked into the middle of an Osage 
orange hedge, where he stuck for three hours, and lost 
his voice by screaming, and was scraped to the bone 
when they finally pulled him out with grappling hooks. 
And Master Bi'derback, the author of all this calamity, 
was thrown from his seat at the first stump, and fell on a 
shock of grain, and wasn't jarred or bruised or scratched 
a particle. And that night, wheu his aunt handed his 
blinded uncle the halter-strap, and held Master Bilder- 
back in front of him to receive merited castigation, that 
graceless young wretch seized his aunt around the neck 
after the first blow, and wheeling her into his place, held 
her there, drowning her piercing explanations and plead- 
ings in his own tumultuous but deceitful howlings and 
roarings, until her back looked like a war map, and the 
exhausted uncle laid down the strap with the remark 
that he "guessed that would teach him something." And 
so the teacher, when she saw master Bilderback at school 
again, felt weary of life, and sighed to rest her deep in 
the silent grave — if she could find one that was for rent, 
and didn't cost more than a quarter's salary. 

It being the young man's first day at school that term, 
he was feeling pretty well, thank you. He had a fight 

and a half before the bell rang; the half fight being an 
4 



86 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

unsuccessful attempt on his part to pull enough hair out 
of the back of another boy's head to stuff a mattress, 
and a highly successful effort on the part of the other 
boy to claw enough hide off Master Bilderback's nose to 
make a pair of boots of, at which discouraging stage of 
the war Master B. drew off his forces, and in a concilia- 
tory spirit informed the audience that he was only in fun. 
Then, before the opening exercises were half through, 
three boys in his neighborhood rose up in their seats and 
with bitter wails began feeling about in their persons for 
intrusive pins. When the first class filed out to its place, 
the circling grin told the anxious teacher that Master 
Bilderbaclc had inked the end of his nose. Then he 
induced the boy next to him to lean his head back against 
the wall, just as master B. did; and when that complai- 
sant boy was suddenly called on to rise and recite, he 
lifted up his voice and wept, for he had pulled a piece 
of shoemaker's wax and about two ounces of blackboard 
slating and plaster out of the wall with his back hair. 
Then he spread out the tail of another boy's coat on the 
seat, and piled a little pyramid of buckshot on it; and 
when the boy stood up to recite, he was waltzed out on 
the floor — bathed in innocent tears, and protesting his 
innocence — for throwing shot on the floor, and was told 
he was growing worse than that Bilderback boy. He 
tied the ends of a girl's sash around the back of her chair, 
and when she tried to stand up she was almost jerked 
out of existence. He was sent out with a boy who was 
taken with the nose-bleed, and found occasion to mix ink 
in the water he poured on the sufferer's hands; so that, 
on his return, the sufferer's appearance created such 
howls of derision that it started the nose-bleed afresh, 
and threw the teacher into hysterics. He enticed a 
gaunt hound into the girls' side of the yard, and clapping 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETETUS. 87 

a patent clothes-pin on one of its pendant ears, raised 
the alarm of " rrfad dog ! " and laughed till he choked to 
see the howling animal rushing around trying to paw the 
clothes-pin off; while the shrieking girls wrecked them- 
selves in desperate and frequently successful attempts to 
climb over an eight foot fence. He put a pinching-bug 
as big as a postage-stamp down a boy's back. He got a 
long slate-pencil crossways in his mouth, and it nearly 
poked through his cheeks before they could break it and 
get it out. He tossed a big apple, hard as a rock, out of 
the third story window at random, and it struck an old 
lady in the eye as she was walking along admiring the 
building; and she came up and gave the poor tortured 
teacher a piece of her mind as long as the dog days. He 
dropped into the water-bucket a lot of oxalic acid, that 
had been brought to take some ink splotches out of the 
floor, and came within one of poisoning the whole school 
before they found it out ; and, finally, he poked a bean 
so far up his nose that they thought it was coming out of 
his eye; and the happy teacher dismissed him, thoroughly 
frightened for the first time in his eventful life, and he 
ran like a race-horse all the way home, crying louder, at 
every step, and never stopped to call a name or throw a 
stone. 



RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



ODE TO AUTUMN. 



AFTER TENNYSON. 

THE grasshopper creaks in the leafy gloom, 
And the bumble-bee bumbleth the live long day; 
But the mathering nurks in the bran new broom, 
And hushed is the sound of the buzz saw's play. 

0.h, it's little he thinks of the cold mince pie, 
And it's little he seeks of the raw ice cream ; 

For the dying old year with its tremulous sigh, 
Shall waken the lingering loon from his dream. 

Oh, list ! For the cricket, now far, now near, 

Full shrinfully singeth his roundelay ; 
While the negligent noodle his noisy cheer 

Screeps where the doodle bug eats the hay. 

Oh, the buzz saw so buzzily buzzeth the stick 

And bumbling the bumble-bee bumbleth his tune 

While the cricket cricks crickingly down at the creek 
And the noodle noods noodingly, " Ha! It is noon! " 

The dog fennel sighs, " She is here! she is here! " 

And the smart weed says dreamily, " Give us a rest ! " 

The hop vine breathes tenderly, " Give us a beer! " 
While the jimson weed hollers, " Oh, pull down your 
, vest!'' 

Oh, Anna Maria, why don't you come home? 

For the clock in the steeple strikes seven or eight ; 
Way down in the murky mazourka the gloam 

Is gloaming its gloamingest gloam on the gate. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 89 



THE SORROWS OF THE POOR. 



IT was a poor, dejected looking tramp, who came limp- 
ing wearily into town on the Fort Madison road, 
and, with the instinct of his class, made his way directly 
toward Main Street, where stimulants and company are 
most numerous. He had a very tired look, and his 
poorly shod feet seemed to weigh a ton a piece. The 
sun had burned his face to a deeper brown than even the 
knotty hands that swung listlessly at his side. He did 
not even carry the inevitable stick; and the little bundle, 
without which the tramps outfit is never complete, 
although heaven only knows what is in it, was swung 
from his shoulders by a heavy twine string, like a rude 
knapsack. No man is alive now that wore clothes when 
the hat he wore was made. It was a fearful and won- 
derful hat, and attracted more attention than anything 
he had on or about him. He limped along Main Street 
from Locust, diving into private houses in occasional 
forays for bread, which were generally successful, for his 
poor, dejected, sorrowful looking face threw a great deal 
of silent eloquence into his pleading, and the women 
could not bear to send the low- voiced man away hungry. 
These forays were varied by occasional dives into places 
of refreshment, where he vainly pleaded for a small allow- 
ance of ardent spirits for a sick man ; the general result 
being that he was courteously refused and gently but 
firmly kicked out by the urbane barkeeper, who saw too 
many of him every day to be much moved. The poor 
fellow limped along till he got a little above Division 



90 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Street, when he had to pass a knot of young men, and 
one of them, a smart looking young chap, in a very 
gamey costume, and carrying a broad pair of shoulders 
and a bullet head, surmounted with a silver-gray plug 
hat, hung on his right ear, sang out, 

".Oh, shoot the hat!" 

The poor tramp only looked more dejected than ever, 
if possible, and shook his head meekly and sorrowfully, 
and limped on. But the young sport shouted after him: 

" Come back, young fellow, and see how you'll trade 
hats!" 

The outcast paused and half turned, and said in 
mournful tones: 

"Don't make game of a onfortnit man, young gents. 
I'm poor and I'm sick, but I've the feelin's of a man, an' 
I kin feel it when I'm made game of. If you could give 
me a job of work, now — " 

A chorus of laughter greeted the suggestion, and the 
smartest young man repeated his challenge to trade hats, 
and finally induced the mendicant to limp back. 

" Take off your hat," said the young man of Burling- 
ton, "and let's see whose make it is. If it isn't Stetson's, 
I won't trade." 

"Oh, that's Stetson's," chorused the crowd. "He 
wouldn't wear anything but a first-class hat." 

But the tramp replied, trying to limp away from the 
circle that was closing around him. 

" Indeed, young gents, don't be hard on a onfortnit 
man. I don't believe I could git that hat off'n my head ; 
I don't indeed. I haint had it off fur mor'n two months, 
indeed I haint. I don't believe I kin git it off at all. 
Please let me go on." 

But the unfeeling young men crowded around him 
more closely and insisted that the hat should come off, 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 9 1 

and the smartest young man in company said he'd pull 
it off for him. 

"Indeed, young gent," replied the tramp, apologet- 
ically, "I don't believe you could git it off. It's been on 
so long I don't believe you kin git it off ; I don't really/' 

The young man advanced and made a motion to jerk 
off the hat, but the tramp limped back and threw up his 
hands with a clumsy frightened gesture. 

"Come young gents," he whined, "don't playgames 
on a poor fellow as is lookin' for the county hospital. I 
tell ye, young gents, I'm a sick man, I am. I'm on the 
tramp when I ought to be in bed. I can't hardly stand, 
and I haint got the strength to be fooled with. Be easy 
on a poor " 

But the sporting young man cut him off with " Oh, give 
us a rest and take off that hat." And then he made a 
pass at the poor sick man's hat, but his hand met the 
poor, sick tramp's elbow instead. And then the poor 
man lifted one of his hands about as high as a derrick, 
and the next instant the silver-gray plug hat was 
crowded so far down on the young man's shoulders that 
the points of the dog's eared collar were sticking up 
through the crown of it. And then the poor sick man 
tried his other hand, and part of the crowd started off 
to help pick the young man out of a show window where 
he was standing on his head, while the rest of the con- 
gregation was trying its level best to get out of the way 
of the poor sick tramp, who was feeling about him in a 
vague, restless sort of way that made the street lamps 
rattle every time he found anybody. Long before any 
one could interfere the convention had adjourned sine die, 
and the poor tramp, limping on his way, the very per- 
sonification of wretchedness, sighed as he remarked 
apologetically to the spectators : 



92 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" I tell you, gents, I'm a sick man ; I'm too sick to feel 
like foolin' ; I'm jest so sick that when I go gropin' 
around for somethin' to lean up agin I can't tell a man 
from a hitchin' post; I can't actually, ^nd when I rub 
agin anybody, nobody hadn't ought to feel hard at me. 
I'm sick, that's what I am." 



MR. GEROLMAN LOSES HIS DOG. 



MR. GEROLMAN stood on the front porch of his 
comfortable home on West Hill, one morning 
looking out at the drizzling rain in any thing but a com- 
fortable frame of mind. He looked up and down the 
yard, and then he raised his umbrella and went to the 
gate and looked up and down the street. Then he 
whistled in a very shrill manner three or four times, and 
listened as though he was expecting a response. If he 
was, he was disappointed, for there was no response save 
the pattering of the rain on his umbrella, and he frowned 
heavily as he returned to the porch, from which sheltered 
post of observation he gloomily surveyed the dispiriting 
weather. 

" Dag gone the dag gone brute," he muttered savagely, 
" if ever I keep another dog again, I hope it will eat me 
up." 

And then he whistled again. And again there was no 
response. It was evident that Mr. Gerolman had lost 
his dog, a beautiful ashes of roses hound with seal brown 
spots and soft satin - finish ears. He was a valuable dog, 
and this was the third time he had been lost, and Mr. 



And other hawk-eyetems. 93 

Gerolman was rapidly losing his temper as completely as 
he had lost his dog. He lifted his voice and called aloud : 

" H'yuh - h - h Ponto ! h'yuh P#nto ! h'yuhp onto ! 
h'yup onto, h'yup onto h'yuponto, h'yuponto ! h'yup, 
h'yup, h , yup!' , 

As he ceased calling, and looked anxiously about for 
some indications of a dog, the front door opened and a 
woman's face, shaded with a tinge of womanly anxiety 
and fastened to Mrs. Gerolman's head, looked out. 

" The children call him Hector," a low sweet voice 
said for the wistful, pretty face ; but the bereaved master 
of the absent dog was in no humor to be charmed by a 
beautiful face and a flute - like voice. 

"By George," he said, striding out into the rain and 
purposely leaving his umbrella on the porch to make 
his wife feel bad, " it's no wonder the dog gets lost, when 
he has so dod binged many names that he don't know 
himself. By Jacks, when I give eleven dollars for a dog, 
I want the privilege of naming him, and the next person 
about this house that tries to fasten an old pagan, Indian, 
blasphemous name on a dog of mine, will hear from me 
about it; now that's all." 

And then he inflated his lungs and yelled like a scalp 
hunter. 

" Here, Hector ! here, Hector ! here rector, hyur, rector, 
hyur rec, h'yurrec, k'yurrec, k'yurrec, k'yurrec! God- 
frey's cordial, where 's that dog gone to? H'yuponto, 
h'yupont ! h'yuh, h'yuh, h'yuh ! I hope he's poisoned — 
h'yurrector ! By George, I do ; h'yuh Ponto, good dog, 
Ponty, Ponty, Ponty, h'yuh Pont! I'd give fifty dollars 
if some one had strychnined the nasty, worthless, lop- 
eared cur ; hyurrec, k'yurrec ! By granny, I'll kill him 
when he comes home, if I don't I hope to die ; h'yuh 
Ponto, h'yuh Ponto, tiyuh Hec ! ! 



94 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

And as he turned back to the porch the door again 
opened and the tremulous voice sweetly asked : 

" Can't you find tyim ? " 

" Naw ! ! ! " roared the exasperated dog - hunter, and 
the door closed very precipitately and was opened no 
more during the session. 

" Here, Ponto ! " roared Mr. Gerolman, from his 
position on the porch, "Here, Hector!" And then he 
whistled until his head swam and his throat was so dry 
you could light a match in it. " Here, Ponto ! Blast the 
dog. I suppose he's twenty- five miles from here. Hec- 
tor ! What are you lookin' at, you gimlet - eyed old 
Bedlamite ? " he savagely growled, apostrophizing a 
sweet - faced old lady with silky white hair, who had just 
looked out of her window to see where the fire was, or 
who was being murdered. " Here, Ponto ! here Ponto ! 
Good doggie, nice old Pontie, nice old Heckie dog — 
Oh -h-h," he snarled, dancing up and down on the porch 
in an ecstasy of rage and impatience, " I'd like to tramp 
the ribs out of the long - legged worthless old garbage- 
eater ; here, Ponto, here ! " 

To his amazement he heard a canine yawn, a long- 
drawn, weary kind of a whine, as of a dog who was 
bored to death with the dismal weather ; then there was 
a scraping sound, and the dog, creeping out from under 
the porch, from under his very feet, looked vacantly 
around as though he wasn't quite sure but what he had 
heard some one calling him, and then catching sight of 
his master, sat down and thumped on the ground with 
his tail, smiled pleasantly, and asked as plainly as ever 
dog asked in the world, 

" Were you wanting me ? " 

Mr. Gerolman, for one brief instant, gasped for breath. 
Then he pulled his hat down tight on his head, snatched 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 95 

up his umbrella with a convulsive grasp and yelled 
" Come 'ere ! " in such a terrific roar that the white - haired 
old lady across the way fell back in a fit, and the dog, 
surmising that all was not well, briefly remarked that he 
had an engagement to meet somebody about fifty - eight 
feet under the house, and shot under the porch like a 
shooting dog - star. Mr. Gerolman made a dash to inter- 
cept him, but stumbled over a flower stand and plunged 
through a honey - suckle trellis, off the porch, and down 
into a raging volcano of moss-rose bush, straw, black 
dirt, shattered umbrella ribs, and a ubiquitous hat, while 
far under the house, deep in the cavernous darkness, 
came the mocking laugh of an ashes of roses dog with 
seal brown spots, accompanied by the taunting remark, 
as nearly as Mr. Gerolman could understand the dog, 
" Who hit him? Which way did he go? " 



96 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



A RAINY DAY IDYL. 



HOW many times do I love you, dear ? 
That is beyond my number's skill ; 
Dearer your smiles than aught else here, 
Unless it might be my amberill. 

Sweet is the glance of your soft brown eyes, 

Veiled when the silken fringes fall ; 
Verse can not tell how much I prize 

Thee, and my constant umbersoll. 

As the shadowy years speed on and by 

Over our lives like a magic spell ; 
Ever to thee I'll fondly fly, 

And shelter you under my amberell. 

Time's wings are swifter than thought, my dear, 
When my heart is cheered by your sunny smile; 

Never an hour is sad or drear, 

When I know where to look for my old umbrile. 

Even when life its sands have run 

And my leaf has fallen sere and yellow, 

Little I'll heed either storm or sun 

Safe 'neath the roof of my dear umbrellow. 

Ha ! But the world is wrapped in gloom — 
Storm, rain and tempest round me roll ; 

Show me the man ! Oh, give me room ! 
Some wretch has stolen my umbersole. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 97 



SINGULAR TRANSFORMATION. 



IT appears that during vacation Master Bilderback, 
having fallen behind in his studies last term, was 
compelled by his ma to read his school books certain hours 
of the day, until he escaped that tyranny by going out to 
his uncle Keyser's farm. In order to make his study as 
light as possible, this ingenious boy had dissected, or 
rather skinned his books, and neatly inserted in their 
covers certain works of the most thrilling character known 
in modern literature. When he came back from the farm 
this transformation business had entirely escaped his 
memory, and it was not even recalled when he heard his 
mother tell the teacher, who called in the hopes of learn- 
ing that that bean had sprouted and grown into his brain 
and would probably terminate fatally, that he was the best 
boy to study during vacation she ever saw, and would 
pore for hours over his books, and even seem anxious to 
get at them. Master Bilderback had forgotten all about 
it, and only thought it was some of his mother's foolish- 
ness, of which he believed her to possess great store. 
As for the bean, the amazed teacher learned that it never 
was discovered, it never came out and it never hurt him 
a particle, and had just naturally ceased to be. And the 
teacher went sadly away, moralizing over this case, and 
that of little Ezra Simpson, the best and most obedient, 
and most studious, and quietest, and most lovable boy in 
her school who, one day stumbled and ran the end of a 
slate pencil into his nose and died the next day. And 
long, long after she had got out of sight of Bilderback's 



98 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

house, she could hear the hopeful Master Bilderback 
shouting, " Shoot that hat! " and " Pull down your vest! " 
to gentlemen driving, with their families or sweethearts, 
past the mansion. Dreadful boy, she thought, he will 
surely come to some end, some day. 

Well, it was only the next day when the reading class 
was called, Master Bilderback took his place for the first 
time. The boy next to him had no book, and as he was 
called first, he just took Master Bilderback's, who turned 
to look on with the boy on the other side. The class 
was reading the selection from " Old Curiosity Shop," 
and a girl had just finished reading the tender para- 
graphs, "She -was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble 
Nell was dead. Her little bird — a poor slight thing the 
pressure of a finger would have crushed — was stirring 
nimbly in its cage, and the strong heart of its child - mis- 
tress was mute and motionless forever." 

Imagine the feeling of the teacher when the boy who 
got up with Master Bilderback 's reader went on : 

" ' Black fiend of the nethermost gloom, down to thy 
craven soul thou liest,' exclaimed Manfred, the Avenger, 
drawing his rapier, ' Draw, malignant hound, and die ! ' " 

" ' Down, perjured fool ! Villain and double - dyed trai- 
tor, down with thy caitiff face in the dust. Dare'st thou 
defy me ? Beast with a pig's head, thy doom is sealed ! ' 
exclaimed the Mystic Knight, throwing up his visor. 
'Dost know me now? I am the Mad Muncher of the 
Bazzarooks! '" 

" Manfred, the Avenger, dropped his blade at this ter- 
rible name, and — " 

The teacher caught her breath and stopped the boy. 
In tones of forced calmness she asked what he was read- 
ing, and he told her it was Bilderback's reader, and 
looked in amazement at the innocent scholastic back 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 99 

and the villainous interior, which was nothing less than 
"The Blood on the Ceiling; or, the Death Track of the 
Black Snoozer." After requesting Master Bilderback to 
remain after school and explain, she called the next 
class, one in Arithmetic. 

" Fisher," she said, " you may read and analyze the 
fourth problem." 

And Fisher, who was Bilderback 's next seat mate, and 
had taken that young man's book by mistake, rose and 

read, 

" The purtiest little baby, oh !, 
That ever I did see, oh ! 
They gave it paregoric, oh ! 
And sent it up to glory, oh! 

Fillacy, follacy, my black hen, 
She lays eggs for gentlemen ; 
Sometimes " 

" In mercy's name," shrieked the poor teacher,"what 
have you got there ? " And investigation revealed the 
rather humiliating fact that when Mrs. Bilderback thought 
her young son was poring over mathematical problems, 
he was learning choice vocal selections out of " The Pull- 
Back Songster and Ethiopian Glee Book." 

When the grammar class was called, the teacher asked 
some one to bring her a book. Master Bilderback was 
the nearest, and he handed her his, innocently enough, 
for he had been busy with more projects than we could 
tell about in a week, since the arithmetic class had gone 
down. The teacher was tired and listless with that 
wearing worry and torture which is only found in the 
school room, and she listlessly and mechanically opened 
the book at the place, and said, 

" Mamie, how would you analyze and parse this sen- 
tence," and casting her eyes on the page, she read : 



TOO 



" Ofer you dond vas got some glothes on, go on dark 
blaces, off you blease. Ain'd it?" 

She laid down the book, and burst into hysterical tears, 
unable even to exert her authority to restrain the mirth 
that biirst out all over the school room. She dismissed 
the school, and had not sufficient energy to punish even 
Master Bilderback, and that young gentleman only car- 
ried home a note to his father, requesting that citizen 
and tax payer to reorganize his son's school library before 
he sent him back to that palladium of our country's 
liberties, the public school. 



SUBURBAN SOLITUDE. 



MR. DRESSELDORF, who can't endure any noise 
since he sold his clarionet, has just moved into 
the sweetest little cottage out on South Hill, and here, he 
told Mrs. Dresseldorf, he would rest and spend his 
declining days under his own vine and fig tree, with no 
one to molest or make him afraid. "We have a few 
neighbors," he said, the afternoon they got comfortably 
and cozily settled ; " Mr. Blodgers, next door, keeps a 
cow, and will supply us with an abundance of pure, fresh 
milk ; Mr. Whackem, not far away, is an honest team- 
ster, I understand, and will be convenient when we want 
a little hauling done from town ; Mr. Sturvesant, just 
down the street, has a splendid dog that he says keeps 
an eye on the entire neighborhood, and I think we will 
live pleasantly and happily here." And Mr. Dresseldorf 
sat on the porch and solemnly contemplated the hammer 




'* . < «■ 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. I03 

bruises and the tack holes and nail marks and abrasions 
of stove legs and the pinches of obstinate stove-pipe 
joints on his hands, and wondered if Providence would 
be merciful to him and strike the house with lightning 
before next moving day rolled round. And with this 
pleasant and soothing thought, Mr. Dresseldorf fell into 
a trance of ecstatic content, delighted with the holy quiet 
of the scene and the neighborhood, with Perkins' meadow 
in the serene distance, the sun sinking out of sight, 
throwing long bars of burnished gold through a clump of 
forest trees off to the west, and the summer air vibrating 
with the hushed hum of insect life that floated to the 
Dresseldorf porch. So quiet, so full of peace, so fraught 
with meditation and retrospective self-communings was 
the scene, that Mr. Dresseldorf wondered if he could 
endure so much happiness every evening. Just then, 

"Whoa! Who -oh -oh- oh- h! !" Whack! whack! 
whack ! " Whoa ! ye son of a thief ! Head him, Bill ! 
Whoa!" 

"What under the canopy — " began the startled and 
astonished Mr. Dresseldorf; but just then he saw a gray 
mule with a paint-brush tail flying down the road, head 
and tail up, and its heels making vicious offers at every 
animated object that came within range. It was plain 
that one of Mr. Whackem's mules had got away, as the 
honest teamster and his three sons were seen skirmishing 
down the street in hot pursuit. Mr. Dresseldorf groaned 
as the animal was cornered, and his picture of peaceful 
solitude fled. 

" Whoa ! Don't throw at him ! Whoa now ! " " Head 
him off, dad ! " " Git down the road furder, Bill ! " 
" Whoa, whoa, now ! " " Hee haw ! hee haw ! hee haw ! " 
"Hold on, Tom!" "Hurry up!" "Look out for his 
heels ! " " Now ketch him ! " Chorus, " Whoa ! whoa ! 



104 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

whoa ! " " Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw ! " " Whoop ! " 
" Hi ! " " Whoop-pee ! " " Dog gone the diddledy dog 
gone mule to thunder ! " 

Mr. Dresseldorf groaned as the cavalcade went storm- 
ing and crashing and hallooing down the street. " Thank 
heaven they're gone," he said. 

" Sook-kee ! sook-kee ! sook-kee ! " 

It sounded like a calliope, only it was too far from the 
river; but it brought the man of peace to his feet all the 
same. 

" Sook-kee ! sook-kee ! Suke ! suke ! seuke ! " 

It was Mr. Blodgers calling his cow, and as he empha- 
sized the summons by pounding on the bottom of a tin 
pail with the leg of a milking stool, Mr. Dresseldorf 
moaned and buried his nervous hands in his hair and 
tried to pull the top of his head off. While Mr. Blodgers 
was yelling and pounding, however, a hurricane came 
tearing up the road — a whirlwind of dust and whoops 
and paint-brush tails and horns and sticks — and from 
this awful confusion shot forth yells and brays and bawls 
and the discordant clangor of a cow bell. Mr. Blodgers 
ran out into the road, while Mr. Dresseldorf fell on his 
knees and crammed his fingers in his ears. 

"What'n thunder 's chasm* that keow, I'd like to 
know ? " queried Mr. Blodgers ; then, raising his voice, 
"Hey! Hi! I say! Whoop!" And he was tossed over 
Mr. Dresseldorf 's fence into a garden urn, and the hur- 
ricane passed on up the street, leaving Mr. Blodgers 
howling like a dervish, and beseeching the demoralized 
Dresseldorf to bring him some arnica and whisky. The 
wretched man rose to minister to the sufferings of his 
neighbor, and got the two needful medicines; but just as 
he came out of the house the programme changed again. 
Mr. Sturvesant's dog, keeping an eye upon the entire 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. I05 

neighborhood, had met the whirlwind above mentioned 
up at the next corner, and had promptly turned it 
back. This unexpected retrograde movement placed Mr. 
Whackem, the three Masters Whackem, and a small mob 
of juvenile volunteers who had been picked up at one 
point of the chase and another to help catch the mule, 
directly in the path of the charging mule and Mr. 
Blodgers' cow. An immediate adjournment was at once 
moved and carried, and the entire community lit out for 
the nearest place of refuge; but Mr. Sturvesant's dog 
kept up the chase with such vigor that the whole vocifer- 
ous, yelling, braying, bawling, barking mass came bulging 
through Dresseldorf 's front fence, upsetting the owner of 
the property and carrying him and Mr. Blodgers out into 
the alley, where the mass fell apart, the animals running 
to their respective stables, and the " human warious " 
seeking their homes as soon as they found each other. 
Mr. Dresseldorf advertised his place for sale the next 
morning. He is fond of the quiet life of a suburban 
residence, he says, but it is a little too far from business. 



Io6 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



A BURLINGTON ADDER. 



BURLINGTON rejoices in a mathematical prodigy. 
Indeed it is a perfect wonder, and our educational 
men and teachers used to find a great deal of instruction 
and some pleasure in interviewing the child, a bright boy 
of nine years. His name is Alfred J. Talbot, and his 
parents live at No. 1223 North Main Street. The boy's 
health is rather delicate, so that he has not been sent to 
school a great deal ; but he can perform arithmetical feats 
that remind one of the stories told about Zerah Colburn. 
He was always bright, and possesses a remarkable mem- 
ory. In company with two or three members of the 
school board, we went to the home of the prodigy for an 
interview. He was marvelously ready with answers to 
every question. Our easy starters, such as, " Add 6 and 
3, and 7 and 8, and 2 and 9 and 5," were answered like 
a flash, and correctly every time. Then when we got 
the little fellow at his ease, one of the Directors took 
him in hand. He said : 

" Three times n, plus 9, minus 17, divided by 3, plus 
1, multiplied by 3, less 3, add 7, is how many ? " 

" Nine," shouted the boy, almost before the last word 
was spoken; and the School Inspectors and the news- 
paper man looked at each other in blank amazement. 
Then the other Inspector tried it : 

"Multiply 5 by 13, add 19, subtract 39, divide by 2, 
add 7, multiply by 9, add 15, divide by 7, add 8, multiply 
by 3, less 13, add 9, multiply by 7, divide by 9, add 13, 
divide by it — how many?" 

" Ninety-six ! " fairly yelled the delighted boy, clap- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. IO n 

ping his hands with merriment at the amazement which 
crowned the countenances of his interviewers, and the 
Inspectors turned to the paper man and said, " Take 
him, Mr. Hawkey eT 

Then we did our best to throw the boy. As fast as we 
could speak, and without punctuation, we rattled off this : 

"Add 24 to 17^ multiply by 9^ divide by %, add $$ 
per cent, multiply by 16 extract square root add 9 divide 
by 3-5 of 7-8 add 119 divide by 77^ times 44^ square 
the quotient and multiply by 17^ add 77 and divide by 
33 how ma " 

But before we could say the last syllable the boy fairly 
screamed, 

" 127^6 ! Ask me a hard one ! " 

We had seen enough, and with feelings amounting 
almost to awe we left this wonderful boy. We talked 
about his marvelous powers all the way down. Finally 
it happened to occur to one of the Inspectors to ask the 
other Inspector, 

" Did you follow my example through to notice 
whether the boy answered it correctly ? " 

The tone of amazement gradually passed away from 
the Inspector's face, as he faintly gasped, 

" N - n - no, not exactly, did you ? " 

Then the first Inspector ceased to look mystified and 
began to look very much like Mr. Skinner did when he 
got the Nebraska fruit, and they both turned to the gen- 
tleman who represented the literary department of the 
expedition and said lugubriously, 

"Did you?" 

But he only said : 

" The Burlington and Northwestern narrow - gauge 
railroad will be owned, not by eastern capitalists, but by 
the people through whose country it passes." 



110 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MISAPPLIED SCIENCE. 



IT was only a few years ago the New York Journal 
of Information published the statement that a man 
in New Hampshire, who had been unable to speak for 
five years, went to sleep, one night, with a quid of to- 
bacco in his mouth, and awoke the next morning with 
his voice perfectly strong and smooth and steady. Old 
Mr. Jarvis, who lives out on Vine Street, is sorely afflicted 
with an impediment in his speech, and often says he 
would give a hundred dollars if he could only "t-t-t-t- 
taw- taw- talk f- f- f-f-fast enough t-t- to t - 1 - tell a gug- 
gug - gug - grocer what he w-w -wants bub-bub-bub- 
before he gug - gug- gets it measured out." He takes the 
Journal, and had taken it for twenty -three years, and 
he firmly believed every thing he ever read in it ; Syl- 
vanus Cobb's stories, Mr. Parton's Lives of Eminent 
Americans, the answers to correspondents — Mr. Jarvis 
had taken them all in and believed every word. He 
thought that probably this quid - of - tobacco treatment 
might help his voice a little, and he resolved to give it a 
good trial any how. The first trouble was that he didn't 
chew, and Mrs. Jarvis would never allow a bit of tobacco 
about the house. But he begged a big " chaw" of navy, 
and when he went to bed he tucked it snugly away in his 
cheek, and prepared to sleep in hope. He had his mis- 
givings, and they grew in number and strength as the 
quid began to assert itself, and be sociable, and assimilate 
itself with its surroundings. Mrs. Jarvis asked him if he 
fastened the front gate. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. Ill 

" Um," said Mr. Jarvis, meaning that he had. 

" And are you sure you locked the front door ? " queried 
his restless spouse. 

" Um," replied Mr. Jarvis, meaning that he had not, 
for he was by this time in no condition to open his 
mouth. 

"Hey? "she replied. 

" Um," persisted Mr. Jarvis. 

" What ? " she demanded. 

"Um-m-m!" protested Mr. Jarvis. 

" Well," said she, " you can't make me believe you are 
that near asleep this soon." 

" Um-m-m!" said Mr. Jarvis; meaning that he 
would get up and bounce her out of that front door if she 
didn't hold her clack. 

Presently she sat up in bed. Sniff, sniff! " John Jar- 
vis," she exclaimed, " if I don't smell tobacco in this 
house, I'm a sinful woman. Don't you smell it ? " 

" 'M," replied Mr. Jarvis ; which by interpretation is, 
that he didn't smell any thing and was going to sleep. 

" It's in this very room," she persisted, excitedly. 

" Um," said Mr. Jarvis, meaning that she must be 
crazy. 

" It's under the bed ! " she screamed. " There's a burg- 
lar under the bed ! Oh, help ! fire ! police ! John Jar- 
vis ! ! ! " And she smote Mr. Jarvis a furious pelt in the 
stomach to waken him up. 

It was a terrific thump, and its first effect was to knock 
all the atmosphere out of Mr. Jarvis's lungs so far that 
he could only recover his breath by a violent gasp, which 
first carried the quid of tobacco and all the nicotine 
preparation that it had been steadily distilling down his 
throat, and was immediately succeeded by a tremendous 
cough, as he struggled to rise up in bed, which shot 



112 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

the quid squarely into the eye of the shrieking Mrs. 
Jarvis. 

"Murder! murder!" she screamed, " I'm stabbed! I'm 
stabbed! " 

And John Jarvis choked and coughed and spit and 
coughed and choked and clutched Mrs. Jarvis by the 
throat and tried to choke off her noise, but he grew so 
" ill" that he couldn't hold his grip, and Mrs. Jarvis, the 
moment her throat was released from his trembling 
pressure, rose from the half- strangled gurgles to the 
sublimity of double-edged screams, and made Rome 
howl with melody. And the neighbors broke into the 
house and found a bed - room that looked and smelled 
like a jury - room or a street car, with the sickest man 
they ever saw lying with his head over the side of the 
bed, groaning at the rate of a mile a minute, and the 
worst frightened woman since the flood sitting up beside 
him, screaming faster than he groaned, while one of her 
eyes was plastered up with a black quid of tobacco. 
And that is the way Mr. Jarvis came to stop his Journal. 
He denounces it as the most infamous, mendacious, 
pestilent sheet that ever disgraced American journalism. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 113 



WIDE AWAKE. 



o 



NE day Mr. Bellamy, of Pond Street, read in a 
religious paper the following paragraph : 



Many very good people are annoyed by sleepiness in church. The 
following remedy is recommended : Lift the foot seven inches from 
the floor, and hold it in suspense without support for the limb, and 
repeat the remedy if the attack returns. 

Now, Mr. Bellamy is a very good man, and he is sub- 
ject to that very annoyance, which in his case amounts 
to a positive affliction. So he cut that paragraph out, in 
accordance with the appended instruction, and pasted it 
in his hat, and was rejoiced in his inmost soul to think 
that he had found a relief from his annoyance. He 
hoped that Deacon Ashbury, who had frowned at him so 
often and so dreadfully for nodding, hadn't seen the 
paragraph, for the deacon sometimes slept under the 
preached word, and Mr. Bellamy wanted to get even 
with him. And Mr. Driscoll, who used to sit in the 
choir, and coye| his own sleepiness and divert attention 
from his own heavy eyes by laughing in a most irreverent 
and indecorous manner at Mr. Bellamy's sleepy visage 
and struggling eyes and head — how the* good man did 
want to get it on Driscoll. So he chuckled and hugged 
his treasure, so to speak, in his mind. He was so con- 
fident that he had found the panacea for his trouble that 
he went to the minister and told him what a burden his 
drowsiness had been to him, but that he had made up 
his mind now to shake it off, and to continue to keep it 
off, and he was certain that he had sufficient strength of 



114 R J SE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

mind and force of will to overcome the habit. And the 
minister was so pleased, and commended Mr. Bellamy 
so warmly, and said so earnestly that he wished he had 
one hundred such men in his congregation, that Mr. 
Bellamy was so elated and happy and confident that he 
could hardly wait for Sunday to come to try his new 
method of averting drowsiness. 

Sunday came, however, and soon enough too, for it 
was Saturday afternoon plumb, chick, chock full of men 
with bills, over-due notes, trifling accounts, little balances, 
pay-roll, rent, narrow-gauge subscription, political assess- 
ments and one little thing and another, almost before 
Mr. Bellamy knew it, although it hadn't been there half 
an hour before he had some suspicion of it, and was soon 
very confident of it. Sunday morning found the good 
man in his accustomed place, devout and drowsy as ever. 
The church was very comfortably filled with an attentive 
congregation, and Mr. Bellamy was soon cornered up in 
one end of the pew, and the strange young lady who sat 
next him was attended by a very small white dog, that 
looked like a roll of cotton batting with red eyes and a 
black nose. The opening exercises passed off without 
incident, but the minister hadn't got t o se condly when 
Mr. Bellamy suddenly roused himself with a start from 
a doze into which he was dropping. His heart fairly 
stood still as he thought how nearly he had forgotten his 
recipe. He feared to attract any attention to himself 
lest his precious method should be discovered, and 
slowly lifted his left foot from the foot stool and held it 
about seven inches in the air. As he raised his foot the 
strange young lady shrunk away from him in evident 
alarm. This annoyed Mr. Bellamy and disconcerted 
him so that he was on the point of lowering his foot and 
whispering an explanation when the dog, which had been 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 115 

quietly sleeping by the footstool opened its eyes, and 
seeing the uplifted foot slowly descending in its direc- 
tion, hastily scrambled to its feet and backed away, 
barking and yelping terrifically. The young lady, now 
thoroughly alarmed, jerked her feet from off the footstool, 
which immediately flew up under the weight of Mr.' Bel- 
lamy's other foot, and the dog, excited by this additional 
catastrophe, fairly barked itself into convulsions. Deacon 
Ashbury, awakened by the racket, came tiptoeing and 
frowning down the aisle, bending his shaggy brows upon 
Mr. Bellamy, who actually believed that if he got much 
hotter he would break out in flames, that not even the 
beaded perspiration that was standing out on his scarlet 
face, could extinguish. The young lady rose to leave 
the pew, Mr. Bellamy rose to explain, and as he did so, 
she was quite convinced of what she had before been 
suspicious, that he was crazy. She backed out of the 
pew and sought Deacon Ashbury 's protection. Mr. 
Bellamy attempted to whisper an explanation to the 
deacon, but that austere official motioned him back into 
his seat, and as the minister paused until the interrup- 
tion should cease, said in a severe undertone that was 
heard all over the church. 

"You've been dreaming again, Brother Bellamy." 
Mr. Bellamy sank into his seat, quite covered with 
confusion as with a couple of garments and a bed 
quilt, and his distress was greatly aggravated when he 
looked up into the choir and saw Driscoll, convulsed 
with merriment, stuffing his handkerchief into his mouth, 
and shaking with suppressed laughter. 

After service Mr. Bellamy, who was, all through the 
service, the center of attraction for the entire congrega- 
tion, waited for his pastor, and made one more effort to 
explain his unfortunate escapade. But the minister, 



Il6 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

whose sermon had been quite spoiled by the affair, 
waved him to silence and said, quite coldly : 

" Never mind, Brother Bellamy ; don't apologize ; you 
meant very well, I dare say, but if you make so much 
disturbance when you are awake, I believe I would 
prefer to have you sleep quietly through every sermon I 
preach.'' 

Mr. Bellamy has since stopped his church paper, and 
transferred his subscription to the Hawkeye, saying 
that if he could just find the wretch who set stumbling 
blocks and snares in the columns of the religious press 
for the feet of weak believers, he could die happy. 



THE ARTLESS PRATTLE OF CHILDHOOD. 



WE always did pity a man who does not love chil- 
dren. There is something morally wrong with 
such a man. If his tenderest sympathies are not 
awakened by their innocent prattle, if his heart does not 
echo their merry laughter, if his whole nature does not 
rt "ich out in ardent longings after their pure thoughts 
ana *-, nse ifi s h impulses, he is a sour, crusty, crabbed old 
stick, ai ^ ^ wor i d f u j| f children has no use for him. 
In every a^ and c \[ me ^ t ^ Q ^est and no blest men loved 
children. E\ >Q wicked men have a tende r spot left in 
their hardened h Varts for 1Me ch ii dreru The great men 
of the earth love th m Dogs love them Kamehame . 
kemokimodahroah, the King of the Cannibal islands> 
loves them. Rare, and i , grayy> Ah yes> we ftU loye 
children. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 117 

And what a pleasure it is to talk with them. Who can 
chatter with a bright -eyed, rosy -cheeked, quick-witted 
little darling, anywhere from three to five years, and not 
appreciate the pride which swells a mother's breast, when 
she sees her little ones admired. Ah, yes, to be sure. 

One day, ah can we ever cease to remember that 
dreamy, idle, Summer afternoon — a lady friend who was 
down in the city on a shopping excursion, came into the 
sanctum with her little son, a dear little tid - toddler of 
five bright Summers, and begged us to amuse him while 
she pursued the duties which called her down town. 
Such a bright boy; " so delightful it was to talk to him. 
We can never forget the blissful half hour we spent book- 
ing that prodigy up in his centennial history. 

"Now listen, Clary," we said — his name is Clarence 
Fitzherbert Alencon de Marchemont Caruthers — "and 
learn about George Washington." 

"Who's he? ,, inquired Clarence, etc. 

" Listen," we said, " he was the father of his country." 

" Whose country ? " 

" Ours ; yours v and mine ; the confederated union of 
the American people, cemented with the life blood of the 
men of '76, poured out upon the altars of our country as 
the dearest libation to liberty that her votaries can offer." 

" Who did ? " asked Clarence. 

There is a peculiar tact in talking to children that very 
few people possess. Now most people would have grown 
impatient and lost their temper when little Clarence 
asked so many irrelevant questions, but we did not. We 
knew that, however careless he might appear at first, 
we could soon interest him in the story and he would be 
all eyes and ears. So we smiled sweetly, — that same 
sweet smile which you may have noticed on our photo- 
graphs, just the faintest ripple of a smile breaking across 



Il8 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

the face like a ray of sunlight, and checked by lines of 
tender sadness, just before the two ends of it pass each 
other at the back of the neck. 

And so, smiling, we went on, 

"Well, one day George's father " 

" George who ? " asked Clarence. 

" George Washington. He was a little boy then, just 
like you. One day his father " 

" Whose father ? " demanded Clarence, with an encour- 
aging expression of interest. 

" George Washington's, this great man we were telling 
you of. One day George Washington's father gave him 
a little hatchet for a ■" 

" Gave who a little hatchet? " the dear child interrupted 
with a gleam of bewitching intelligence. Most men 
would have betrayed signs of impatience", but we didn't. 
We know how to talk to children. So we went on : 

" George Washington. His " 

" Who give him the little hatchet ? " 

"His father. And his father " 

" Whose father ? " 

"George Washington's." 

"Oh!" . * 

"Yes, George Washington. And his father told 
him " 

"Told who?" 

"Told George." 

"Oh, yes, George." 

And we went on, just as patient and as pleasant as 
you could imagine. We took up the story right where 
the boy interrupted, for we could see that he was just 
crazy to hear the end of it. We said : 

"And he told him that " 

"Who told him what?" ClarenCe broke in. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 119 

"Why, George's father told George." 

"What did he tell him?" 

" Why, that's just what I am going to tell you. He 
told him " 

"Who told him?" 

"George's father. He -" 

"What for?" 

" Why, so he wouldn't do what he told him not to do. 
He told him ' 

"George told him?" queried Clarence. 

"'No, his father told George " 

"Oh!" 

"Yes; told him that he must be careful with the 
hatchet " 

"Who must be careful?" 

"George must." 

"Oh!" 

"Yes; must be careful with the hatchet " 

"What hatchet?" 

"Why, George's." 

"Oh!" 

" Yes ; with the hatchet, and not cut himself with it, 
or drop it in the cistern, or leave it out in the grass all 
night. So George went round cutting every thing he 
could reach with his hatchet. And at last he came to a 
splendid apple tree, his father's favorite, and cut it down, 
and " 

"Who cut it down?" 

" George did." 

" Oh ! " 

" but his father came home and saw it the first 



thing, and " 

" Saw the hatchet ? " 

" No ; saw the apple tree. And he said, * Who has cut 
down my favorite apple tree?' " 



120 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

"What apple tree?" 

" George's father's. And everybody said they didn't 

know any thing about it, and " 

" Any thing about what ? " 

"The apple tree." 

" Oh ! " 

" and George came up and heard them talking 



about it " 

" Heard who talking about it ? " 

" Heard his father and the men." 

" What was they talking about ? " 

" About this apple tree." 

" What apple tree ? " 

" The favorite apple tree that George cut down." 

" George who ? " 

" George Washington.'' 

" Oh ! " 

" So George came up and heard them talking about it, 
and he -" 

" What did he cut it down for ? " 

" Just to try his little hatchet." 

" Whose little hatchet ? " 

" Why, his own, the one his father gave him." 

" Gave who ? " 

"Why, George Washington. 

" Who gave it to him ? " 

" His father did." 

"Oh!" 

" So George came up and he said, i Father, I can not 
tellalie,*I '" 

" Who couldn't tell a lie ? " 

" Why, George Washington. He said, ' Father, I can 
not tell a lie. It was " 

"His father couldn't?" 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 121 

"Why no, George couldn't." 

"Oh, George? oh, yes." 

" It was I cut down your apple tree; I did " 

"His father did?" 

" No, no; it was George said this." 

" Said he cut his father ? " 

"No, no, no; said he cut down his apple tree." 

"George's apple tree?" 

" No, no ; his father's." 

"Oh!" 

" He said " 

"His father said?" 

" No, no, no; George said, 'Father, I can not tell a lie. 
I did it with my little hatchet.* And his father said, 
• Noble boy, I would rather lose a thousand trees than 
have you tell a lie." 

"George did?" 

" No, his father said that." 

" Said he'd rather have a thousand apple trees ? " 

"No, no, no; said he'd rather lose a thousand apple 
trees than " 

" Said he'd rather George would? " 

" No, said he'd rather he would than have him lie." 

" Oh ! George would rather have his father lie ? " 

We are patient, and we love children, but if Mrs. 
Caruthers, of Arch Street, hadn't come and got her 
prodigy at that critical juncture, we don't believe all 
Burlington could have pulled us out of that snarl. And 
as Clarence Fitzherbert Alencon de Marchemont Caruth- 
ers pattered down the stairs, We heard him telling his 
ma about a boy who had a father named George, and he 
told him to cut down an apple tree, and he said he'd 
rather tell a thousand lies than cut down one apple tree. 

5* 



122 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



SPRING DAYS IN BURLINGTON. 



DOWN where the wake-robin springs from its slumbers, 
Opening its cardinal eye to the sun ; 
Come the dull echoes of far away thunders 

Heavy and fast as the shots of a gun. 
Up on the hill where the wild flowers nestle, 

Like new fallen stars on the green mossy strand ; 
There come the dead notes of the house-cleaning pestle — 
The sound of the carpet is heard in the land. 

Up! for the song birds their matins are singing; 

Up, for the morning is tinting the skies ; 
Up, for the good wife the clothes-prop is bringing 

Out to the line where the hall carpet flies. 
Up, and away! for the carpet is dusty! 

Fly, for the house-cleaning days have begun ! 
Run ! for the womanly temper is crusty; 

Up and be doing, lest ye be undone ! 

Late, late ; too late. Just one moment of snoring. 

He wakes to the sound of the tumult below. 
O'er the beating of carpets he hears a voice roaring, 

"Breakfast was over three hours ago! " 
See, he is plunged in the front of the battle ; 

Where dust is the thickest they tell him to stand ; 
Where suds, mops and scrub-brushes spatter and rattle, 

And the sound of the carpet is heard in the land. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 25 



LIFE IN THE "HAWKEYE" SANCTUM. 



THE Hawkey e has just got into its new editorial 
rooms, and it is proud to say it has the finest, most 
comfortable, complete, and convenient editorial rooms in 
America. They are finished off- with a little invention 
which will be of untold value to the profession of jour- 
nalism when it is generally adopted; and we know that 
it will rapidly come into universal use as soon as its 
merits are understood and appreciated. We believe it 
is fully equal, in all that the term implies, to the famous 
Bogardess Kicker, less liable to get out of order, and 
less easily detected by casual visitors. It is known as 
" Middlerib's Automatic Welcome." The sanctum is 
on the same floor as the news-room, being separated 
from it by a partition, in which is cut a large window, 
easily opened by an automatic arrangement. The 
editor's table is placed in front of that window, and near 
the head of. the stairs; and on the side of the table next 
the window, directly opposite the editor, the visitor's 
chair is placed. It has an inviting look about it, and its 
entire appearance is guileless and commonplace. But 
the strip of floor on which that chair rests is a deception 
and a fraud. It is an endless chain, like the floor of a 
horse-power, and is operated at will by the editor, who 
has merely to touch a spring in the floor to set it in 
motion. Its operation can best be understood by per- 
sonal inspection. 

One morning, soon after the " Middlerib Welcome " had 



126 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

been placed in position, Mr. Bostwick came in with a 
funny story to tell. He naturally flopped down into the 
chair that had the strongest appearance of belonging to 
some one else, and began in his usual happy vein : " I've 
got the richest thing — oh! ah, ha, ha! — the best thing — 
oh, by George! I can't — oh, ha, ha, ha! Oh! it's too 
good! Oh, by George, the richest thing! Oh! it's too 
loud ! You must never tell where you got — oh, by George, 
I can't do it! It's too good! You know — oh, ha, ha, ha, 
oh, he, he, he! You know the — oh, by George, I ca — " 
Here the editor touched the spring, a nail-grab under the 
bottom of the chair reached swiftly up and caught Mr. 
Bostwick by the cushion of his pants, the window flew 
up, and the noiseless belt of floor gliding on its course 
bore the astonished Mr. Bostwick through the window 
out into the news-room, half-way down to the cases, 
where he was received with great applause by the de- 
lighted compositors. The window had slammed down 
as soon as he passed through; and when the editorial 
foot was withdrawn from the spring and the chair stopped 
and the nail-grab assumed its accustomed place, young 
Mr. Bostwick found himself so kind of out of the sanctum, 
like it might be, that he went slowly and dejectedly 
down the stairs, as it were, while amazement sat upon his 
brow, like. 

The next casual visitor was Mr. J. Alexis Flaxeter, the 
critic. He had a copy of the Hawkeye in his hand, with 
all the typographical errors marked in red ink, and his 
face was so wreathed in smiles that it was impossible to 
tell where his mouth ended and his eyes began. He took 
the vacant chair, and spread the paper out before him, 
covering up the editorial manuscript. " My keen vision 
and delicate sense of accuracy," he said, " are the great- 
est crosses of my life. Things that you never see are 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



127 



mountains in my sight. Now here, you see, is a " 

The spring clicked softly, like an echo to the impatient 
movement of the editor's foot, the nail-grab took hold 
like a bulldog helping a Burlington troubadour over the 
garden fence, the chair shot back through the window 
like a meteor, and the window came down with a slam 
that sounded like a wooden giant getting off the shortest 
bit of profanity known to man; and all was silent again. 
Mr. Flaxeter sat very close to the frosted window, staring 
blankly at the clouded glass, seeing nothing that could 
offer any explanation of what he would have firmly 
believed was a land slide, had he not heard the editor, 
safe in his guarded den, softly whistling, " We shall meet 
but we shall miss him." 

Then there was a brief interval of quiet in the sanc- 
tum, and a rustling of raiment was heard on the stairs. 
A lovely woman entered, and stood unawed in the edito- 
rial presence. The E. P., on its part, was rather nervous 
and uncomfortable. The lovely woman seated herself in 
the fatal chair. She slapped her little gripsack on the 
table, and opened her little subscription book. She said: 
" I am soliciting cash contributions — strictly, exclusively, 
and peremptorily cash contributions — to pay off the 
church debt, and buy an organ for the Mission Church 

of the Forlorn Strangers, and I expect ." There are 

times when occasion demands great effort. The editor 
bowed his head, and, after one brief spasm of remorse, 
felt for the secret spring. The window went up like a 
charm; the reckless nail-grab hung back for a second, as 
if held by a feeling of innate delicacy, and then it shut 
its eyes and smothered its pity, and reached up and took 
a death-like hold on a roll of able and influential news- 
papers and a network of string and tape, and the caval- 
cade backed out into the news-room with colors flying. 



128 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

The chair stopped just before the familiar spirit who was 
washing the forms; and, as the lovely woman gazed at 
the inky face, she shrieked : " Merciful heavens, where, 
where am I ? " and was borne down the gloomy stairway 
unconscious; while the printers whose cases were near- 
est the wicked window heard the editor singing, as it 
might be to himself, " Dearest sister, thou hast left us." 

An hour of serenity and tranquillity in the editorial 
room was broken by a brisk, business-like step on the 
stairs ; the door flew open with a bang that shot the key 
half-way across the room, and a sociable-looking, familiar 
kind of a stranger jammed into the chair, slapped his hat 
over the ink-stand, pushed a pile of proof, twenty pages 
of copy, a box of pens, the paste-cup, and a pair of scis- 
sors off the table to make room for the old familiar flat 
sample case, and said, in one brief breath: " I am agent 
for Gamberton's Popular Centennial World's History and 
American Citizens' Treasure Book of Valuable Informa- 
tion sold only by subscription and issued in thirty parts 
each number embellished with one handsome steel-plate 
engraving and numerous beautifully executed wood-cuts 
no similar work has ever been published in this country 
and at the exceedingly low price at which it is offered $2 

per vol ." 

The spring clicked like a pistol-shot, the window went 
up half-way through the ceiling, the nail-grab took hold 
like a three-barreled harpoon, and the column moved on . 
its backward way through the window, down through the 
news-room past the foreman, standing grim and silent, 
by the imposing stone, past the cases, vocal with the 
applause and encouraging and consolatory remarks of the 
compositors, on to the alley windows, over the sills — 
howling, yelling, shrieking, praying, the unhappy agent 
was hurled to the cruel pavement, three stories below, 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 29 

where he lit on his head and plunged through into a cel- 
lar, where he tried to get a subscription out of a man who 
was shoveling coal. 



THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 



IT was a Mt. Pleasant girl. No other human divinity 
could play such a heartless trick on an admiring, nay, 
an adoring and adorable, young man. He always praised 
the flowers she wore, and talked so learnedly about 
flowers in general, that this incredulous young angel 
" put up a job " on him — if one may be so sacrilegious 
as to write slang in connection with so much beauty and 
grace. She filled the bay window with freshly potted 
weeds which she had laboriously gathered from the side- 
walk and in the hollow under the bridge, and when he 
came round that evening she led the conversation to 
flowers, and her admirer to the bay window. " Such 
lovely plants she had," she told him, and he just clasped 
his hands and looked around him in silly ecstasy, trying 
to think of their names. 

"That is Patagonia mjluenses, Mr. Bogundus," she 
said, pointing to the miserable cheat of a young rag- 
weed; "did you ever see any thing so delicate ?" 

"Oh!" he ejaculated, regarding it reverentially; 
" beautiful, beautiful ; what delicately serrated leaves!" 

" And," she went on, with a face as angelic as though 
she was only saying " Now I lay me down to sleep," 
"it breaks out in the. Summer in such curious green 
blossoms, clinging to long, slender stems. Only think of 
that — green blossoms." And she gazed pensively on the 



130 



RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



young man as though she saw something green that 
probably never would blossom. 

"Wonderful, wonderful indeed," he said, "one can 
never tire of botany. It continually opens to us new 
worlds of wonders with every awakening flower and 
unfolded leaf." 

" And here," she said, indicating with her snowy finger 
a villainous sprout of that little bur the boys call "beg- 
gar's lice," "this Mendicantis parasitatis % what " 

" Oh ! " he exclaimed, rapturously, " where did you 
get it ? Why, do you know how rare it is ? I have not 
seen one in Burlington since Mrs. O'Gheminie went to 
Chicago. She had such beautiful species of them ; such 
a charming variety. She used to wear them in her hair 
so often." 

" No doubt," the angel said dryly ; and the young man 
feared he had done wrong in praising Mrs. O'Gheminie's 
plants so highly. But the dear one went on, and point- 
ing to a young jimson weed, said : 

" This is my pet, this Jimsonata fiZiofensis." 

The young man gasped with the pleasure of a true 
lover of flowers, as he bent over it in admiration and 
inhaled its nauseous odor. Then he rose up and said : 

" This plant has some medicinal properties." 

"Ah!" she said. 

"Yes," he replied, stiffly, "it has. I have smelt that 
plant in my boyhood days. Wilted on the kitchen stove, 
then bruised and applied to the eruption, the leaves are 
excellent remedial agents for the poison of the ivy." He 
strode past the smiling company that gathered in the 
parlor, and said sternly, " We meet no more !" and, 
seizing her father's best hat from the rack, he extinguished 
himself in it, and went banging along the line of tree- 
boxes which lined his darkened way. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 131 



SPRING TIME IN AMERICA. 



DEAR, faded, flowers, they bloom again, 
Like echoes of the spring time gone ; 
And mossy hillside, shadowy glen, 

Break out in beauty like the dawn. 
In regal beauty, leaf and bud 

Bend 'neath the kisses of the breeze, 
And " Spanish Mixture for the Blood" 
Smiles from the fences, rocks and trees. 

Dear, smiling Spring, what tender hope 

Breathes from the life- awakening soil ; 
How " Bolus' Anti-bilious Dope," 

And " Dr. Gastric's Castor Oil " 
Bid frightened nature wake and smile ; 

For spring time's blossoms fill us less 
With thoughts of pansies than with vile 

" Panaceas " for " Biliousness." 

If to the wooded nook we stray, 

Where every swelling germ is huge 
With life ; each gray-browed rock will say, 

"Use Philogaster's Vermifuge." 
If from these sylvan bowers we fly, 

We fly, alas, to other ills ; 
And farm-yard gates and barn-doors cry, 

"Take Ginsengrooter's Liver Pills." 

Each blue-eyed violet hides a " Pill," 
There's scent of " Rhubarb " in the air ; 



I3 2 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Rheumatic Plasters " line each hill, 
And " Bitters " blossom everywhere. 

With " Ague Cures" the eyes are seared; 
The air is thick, or thin, I meant, 

For Nature's face and clothes are smeared 
With " Universal Liniment." 



WOODLAND MUSIC AND POETRY. 



BUT Mr. Middlerib's greatest delight, escaping 
from his daily wrangle with phlegmatic Peorians, 
was to seek some cool, sequestered spot, where the 
air was vocal with the song of birds, there to read, and 
ponder, and doze, and blend with the melody of the 
woodland warblers wrathful objurgations of the gnats, 
and flies, and mosquitoes, and hard-backed bugs that 
nobody knew the names of. But his poetical nature 
rose above all these minor distractions, and he enjoyed 
his seclusion and its sylvan delights. One lovely 
morning h^ sat in a vine-embowered porch, with four 
cages of canaries hanging above his head, and the trees 
around fairly alive with the wild birds, and as he listened 
to the varied, melodious passages of the wild-wood 
orchestra, he grew enraptured, and in a moment of 
enthusiasm gave himself up to poetry for Mrs. M.'s 
benefit. He opened the book in his hand, and in a 
lull of the music he began : 

*' A cloud lay cradled near the set " 

" Tweetle, tweetle, twee twee tweedle dee tweet tweet !" 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 133 

broke in ear-piercing chorus from the four cages, " twee, 
twee, tweedle de deedle, twee twee !" 

" What a delightful interruption," said Mr. Middlerib, 
sweetly; and, with a tender smile wrinkling his placid 
face, like the upper crust of a green apple pie, he waited 
for the music to cease, and resumed : 

" A cloud lay era " 



"Twee, twee, twee-ee-ee, tweedle, tweedle, tweedle! 
Tweet-te-deet-deet, tweet tweet! Tweedle-de-deedle, 
tweetle, tweetle tweet tweet !" 

" A poem without words," said Mr. Middlerib, softly? 
glancing from his book toward the cages wherein eight 
yellow throats were manufacturing music of the shrillest 
key that ever developed an ear-ache or woke up a deaf 
and dumb asylum. Presently he got another chance, and 
resumed once more : 

" A cloud lay cradled near the set " 



" To-whoot ! To whoot ! Whootle-te-toot-toot !" came 
from a bird in the nearest hickory, a solemn-looking bird 
with a brown back and a voice like a wooden whistle. 
Mr. Middlerib paused and glanced toward the tree, while 
the benign smile which made his face look like a dam- 
aged photograph of one of the early Christian martyrs, 
faded away like a summer twilight. He resumed : 

" A cloud lay era " 



" Too-toot too doodle toot-te-doot ! Wheetle de deetle, 
tweet tweet tweetle tweet, twee twee whoot de doot too 
too, chippity-wippity, cheep-cheep-cheep, whoot, squack 
squack!" went off the whole chorus, cages and trees, 
supplemented by a visiting party of cat-birds, all aroused 



134 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

into indignant and jealous protest by the obtrusive solo 
of the wooden-whistle bird, who appeared to be an object 
of general dislike. Mr. Middlerib, thinking he would 
read down opposition, went right on : 

" died near the setting sun, 

A gleam of crim " 

" K-r-r-r-r-r-r ! " 

A woodpecker tapped his merry roundelay on the roof 
of the porch, and Mrs. Middlerib sprang from her chair 
with, "Mercy on us! what is that?*' Mr. Middlerib 
made a cutting remark about people who had no appre- 
ciation of the beautiful in nature or art, and remarked : 

"A gleam of crimson tinged its " 

" Twee-ee, twee, deedle-eedle-odle twiddle twoddle, 
twoot, too too tweedle oot ! Teedle idle eedle odle, twee 
twee, twee! Pe weet, pe weet! Whootle ootle tootle 
too, squack squack ! " 

Mr. Middlerib elevated his voice to about ninety 
degrees in the shade, and roared : 

" tinged its braided snow, 



Long had I wat " 

" Caw, caw, caw ! Ca-a-a-aw ! " came from the pen- 
sive crow, startled from its quiet retreat in the old dead 
Cottonwood, and Miss Middlerib giggled. But Mr. M. 
inflated his lungs and roared on : 

" ched the glory moving on, 

O'er the still radiance " 

" Tweetle de twootle, caw, caw, tweetle doodle tweet 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 135 

tweet! K-r-r-r-r-r-r, krk, krk! twee deedle eet tweet! 
teedle idle, whoot, toot, twoot! who! squack, squack, 

k-r-r-r " 

" Shut up, ye nasty, squawking, yallipin', howlin' little 
beasts ! Shoo ! Light out o' this or I'll stone ye from 
here to Halifax ! Scat with yer noise ! Oh !" exclaimed 
the exasperated worshiper of nature as he hurled his 
book into the nearest tree and went off the porch to look 
for some stones, " If there is any thing in this world I 
hate more than another, its a lot of nasty, flittering, 
fidgety, yowping, howling birds! Ugh! " And he threw 
his shoulder nearly out of joint, and sprained his arm, in 
a herculean but futile effort to hit a black bird a mile 
and a half away, with a rock as big as a straw hat. He 
has- dropped the sulphur baths for the present and taken 
to arnica. 



BUYING A TIN CUP. 



THE town was dozing in the drowsy sunlight of a 
dull August afternoon, when a dejected looking 
man, with the appearance of one who was making des- 
perate efforts to appear unconcerned, stepped into a 
prominent and fashionable dry goods establishment up 
on Jefferson street. Scorning the proffered stool, he 
braced himself firmly against the counter, and looking 
the polite and attentive clerk fixedly in the eye, broke 
the impressive silence by abruptly demanding : 

" Gimme tinkup ! " 

" We do not keep them, sir," smilingly replied the 
affable clerk, and the glare of suspicion with which that 



136 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

man regarded him was sufficient to chill the blood of a 
snake. 

" Donkeep tinkups ? " he asked, quickly and distrust- 
fully. 

"No, sir," replied the clerk, "we have no tin cups. 
This is a dry goods store. You will find the tin store 
farther up the street." 

"Few donkeep notinkups — watchkeep?" demanded 
the man, imperiously. 

" We have grenadines, calicos, bareges, gros grain rib- 
bons, tarletan, velvets, moire antique, empress cloth, 
pongee and Japanese silks " 

"Shut her off!" ejaculated the man, " Puttit tup! 
Puttit tup ! " 

" He turned away with a dignified gesture, and walked 
away with stately, though uncertain strides, and dived 
into the Plunder store, where he startled the proprietor 
by the same urgent demand for the "tinkup," and he 
was finally piloted into Kaut & Kriechbaum's, where he 
bought his "tinkup," which he fell down on before he 
got to the Barret House corner, mashing it flat as a pie 
pan. He was helped into his wagon, and as he drove 
away the last the citizens saw of him he was holding the 
flattened tin cup before him, exclaiming ruefully : 

" Devlofa — lookin — tinkupthatrs ' " 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 137 



ONE OF THE LEGION. 



A CITIZEN of South Hill, 
His visage bathed in tears, 
His raiment streaked with rust and dust, 

His mind distraught with fears, 
Was leaning up by the shattered gate, 

And his sad eyes gazed around 
Where reckless ruin here and there 

With fragments strewed the ground. 
But a drayman stood beside him 

To hear what he might say, 
As he stretched him out his good right arm 

And waited for his pay. 

The weeping mover faltered 

As he saw the drayman's hand, 
And he said, " I haven't a red, red cent 

In all of this broad fair land. 
I haven't a clothes to my aching back 

Save only these rags you see ; 
And all the furniture I have left 

Won't pay you half your fee. 
There's a leg of the table in the street, 

And the lamp globes strew the stair, 
And the stovepipe's flattened out like a lath, 

And the clock is not nowhere. 

; Tell my wife, if you can find her, 
That when the job was done, 



138 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

The furniture wasn't half so good 

As it was when we begun. 
That the end of the bureau she's looking for 

Is down by the alley gate, 
And the parlor mirror is bent so bad 

She never can pound it straight. 
We broke the legs of the kitchen stove, 

And we smashed the Parian vase, 
And the dray ran over her rocking chair 

And ruined its stately grace. 

" Tell my sister, her darling new spring hat 

Was packed in a bag of corn, 
And I never again can look in her face 

And meet her glance of scorn. 
We spilled coal oil on her summer silk, 

And we tore her cashmere sacque, 
For her dressing bureau fell off the dray 

And the horse kicked out its back. 

" There's another, not a sister, 

In happier days gone by, 
You'd know her by the savage light 

That glittered in her eye. 
Too business-like for foolery, 

Too sharp for my excuses — 
Ah me, I fear adversity 

Has naught but bitter uses ; 
Tell her, the last time you saw me — 

For ere the clock strikes ten, 
I'll be at work on the ' Third Degree,' 

The happiest of men ; 
Tell her I said that she could go 

To the bow-wow wow-wow wows ; 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 139 

That I'd stay down town when lodge was out, 

And sleep at a boarding-house 
Tell her she needn't sit up for me, 

And she needn't leave no light " 

And a voice came out of the hall and said, 

"You don't go to no Lodge to-night." 

His voice was gone in a minute, 

He gasped and tried to speak ; 
He tried to swear, but the drayman says 

That he couldn't raise a squeak. 

And his mother-in-law rose slowly, 

And calmly she looked down 
On the green grass of the littered yard, 

With household treasures strewn. 
Yes, calmly on that dreadful scene 

She gazed, and looked around, 
And said to the weeping man by the gate, 

" Pick them things up off the ground." 



140 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



A TACITURN WITNESS. 



AN ordinary case of assault and battery was called in 
I~\ Judge Stutsman's court, and the prosecuting wit- 
ness was duly sworn: Phelim O'Shaughnessy, a little, 
weazen -faced man, with a stubbly beard all over his jaws 
and a pair of bright eyes flanking the snubbiest of noses. 

"Now, then, Mr. O'Shaughnessy," said the court, 
" tell what you know about this matter in as few words 
as you possibly can." 

" Faix, thin, yer anner, an' I will do that same," 
replied the witness, with great volubility. "Av' there is 
ony thing I do be despisin' it's wan ov thim same whur- 
rimurroo gabblers that niver know when they're through. 
When ye git troo pumpin, sez I, lave the handle ; that's 
me. An' ye niver see an O'Shaughnessy in the wor-r-ld, 
yer anner, that wur a cackler. I mind me mither's own 
uncle that ever was, Tim the Croaker they used to be 
callin' him, though his name was ' Timothy Mahone 
O'Dubbleriggle Balbrigganainey, for be the token he 
niver wur known to say more nor wan wor-rud at a time, 
yer anner, an' that wan he said with a grunt. There 
was wan day, whin he wur gamekeeper fur my lord Don- 
ald McAlpin Clanargotty Callum O'Dowd, a Scotch gin- 
tleman that owned a bit av a shootin' box might be, in 
the north uv " 

"Well, there, there, there," interrupted the court, 
" that's enough about your ancestry ; now tell what you 
know about this case of yours, and stick to the point." 

" The p'int,is it, avick ?" replied the witness ; " Musha, 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 141 

thin, it wur fwhat I wur comm' to, jist. It's what I sez 
to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy twinty times a day, an' she's the 
wor-r-rst talker between here an' Dublin bay. * Norah/ 
sez I ; 'Is it you/ sez she ; ' Faix thin, an' who else 
wud it be ? ' sez I ; * An' phwat uv it ? ' sez she ; ' Div 
ye mind me, now? ' sez I; 'Sorra the wan uv me does,' 
sez she ; ' Wait thin, till I tell ye,' sez I ; ' Whisht, thin, 
go on with yer blarney/ sez she ; ' Howld yer hush a 
minit, thin,' sez I, ' an' let's have a second av quiet ;' 
'What!' sez she, 'wid ye in the house?' 'Listhen,' 
sez I ; ' Whisper, thin,' sez she ; ' Well, thin,' sez I, ' kape 
to the pint. Av yez will do nothin' but talk from the 
peep o' mor-r-rn till the lasht wink uv night, kape till the 
p'int.' Ah, yer anner, it's the wan fur talkin', she is, is 
Norah. It isn't an O'Shaughnessy she is, yer anner, 
her father, rest his sowl, was ould Darby Muldoon, the 
solid man, an' he wur sint to Austhralia for twenty-sivin 
years panal sarvitude fur talkin' a thraveler to death 
whin he wur dhrivin' him from " 

"That will do," interrupted the court, sternly ; "we've 
heard enough of your reminiscences. Now you tell what 
you know about this case, or I'll fine you for contempt. 
You have filed information against Morris McHogadan 
for assaulting you with a paving hammer, in the back 
yard of your own premises in Melrose Place, Happy 
Hollow, and knocking three teeth down your throat, 
breaking one of your ribs, and chewing your ear off. 
Now what have you got to say about it ? " 

" Is it me, avick ? " 

" Yes, you are the prosecuting witness ; that is your 
own case, and you filed the information on which the 
warrant was issued." 

" An' it says that Morris McHogadan bate me ? " 

" It does, and it is sworn to." 



142 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Oh, the divil an' all ; who shwore to that ?" 

"You did." 

"Phwat?" 

"You swore to all that." 

" Oh, tower uv ivory ! That Morris McHogadan bate 
me ? " 

"Yes." 

" Wid a pavin' hammer ? " 

" Yes, so you declared." 

" Oh-h-h, thundher an' turf ! An' bate me teeth down 
the troat ov me ? " 

" So you averred." 

" Oh, the bloody-minded villin ; an' broke me rib ? " 

" That's what you said." 

" Oh-h-h, bones of the martyrs ; and chawed off the 
ear o' me ? " 

" So you told us." 

" Oh, to the divil wid the informashin that says sich a 
pack o' lies. Morris McHogadan bate me ? Och, Moses 
an' Aarin, its tearin' ravin' disthracted mad I am ! Why, 
yer anner, it's a bloody-minded lie. He can't fip wan 
side o' me ; why, the pig-eyed thafe ov the wor-rold, I 
clawed all the red hair out ov the ugly head of him and 
trowed him down the bank ov the crick, and welted him 
like an ould shoe wid a splinther ov timber I grabbed 
out of the crick. Him bate me ? He can't bate nobody. 
I didn't lave a whole bone in his ugly carkiss, an' av he 
dares to say I did, yer anner, I'll ate off his other ear an' 
pound the flare wid him. Oh, the divil fly away wid 
sich infermashin. It's the beggar's own lie, an' " 

Here the witness was cut short by the court fining him 
$10.00 and costs for assault and battery, and Phelim, 
astonished into a terrific flow of volubility for such a 
taciturn man, went away with a policeman, arguing that 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 43 

it wasn't possible that he could be fined when he was 
the prosecuting witness, and declaring that the case never 
would have gone against him but for " the bloody-minded 
infermashin," which he firmly believed to be the evil 
work of the designing Morris McHogadan. 



THE SEEDSMAN. 



HOW doth the busy nurseryman 
Improve each shining hour; 
And peddle cions, sprouts and seeds 
Of every shrub and flower. 

How busily he wags his chin, 
How neat he spreads his store, 

And sells us things that never grew 
And won't grow any more. 

Who showed the little man the way 

To sell the women seed? 
Who taught him how to blow and lie 

And coax and beg and plead ? 

He taught himself, the nurseryman; 

And when his day is done, 
We'll plant him where the lank rag weeds 

Will flutter in the sun. 

But oh, although we plant him deep 

Beneath the buttercup, 
He's so much like the seed he sells, 

He never will come up. 



144 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



CORNERING THE BOYS. 



ONLY a few days before they moved the capital, a 
worthy lady of Peoria one morning detected her 
two sons laughing immoderately. Suspecting that she 
was the cause of their disrespectful mirth, the good 
woman involuntarily loosened her slipper and called up 
the young culprits. 

"Thomas, what made you laugh? " 

" Nobody made me laugh; I laughed on purpose." 

"None of your impudence, sir. John, why were you 
laughing at the door just now ?" 

John (eagerly) — "Wasn't laughing at the door, I was 
laughing at Tom." 

Tom — " And I was laughing at John." 

The matron assumed a dignified attitude. "Now, my 
boys, what were you both laughing at? " 

Boys (in a triumphant shout) — " We were both laugh- 
ing at once ! " 

The good lady summoned all her energies for a final 
effort, and resolved to corner the boys by a settling ques- 
tion. 

" Now, then, I want you to tell me, Tom, what made 
John laugh and you laugh ? " 

Tom — " John didn't laugh a new laugh ; it was the same 
old laugh!" 

Neither of the boys got whipped, the slipper slid back 
to its accustomed place, and to this day nobody knows 
what those boys laughed at. 




' 3 * .3^ >^SEk^ ~- ) 



4$??%:* 



W'|^™^-^ 



SELLING THE HEIRLOOM. 



I 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 147 



[SELLING THE HEIRLOOM. 



ONE afternoon, about a week after the big Fourth 
of July, a hungry-looking man made his appear- 
ance down near the post office corner, carrying in his 
arms an old-fashioned clock, about four feet high, 
with some ghastly looking characters scrawled across 
the dial, like the photograph of a fire-cracker label with 
the delirium tremens. He set the clock down, and in 
loud tones called upon the passers-by to pause, as he 
was about to make a sacrifice that would break the 
heart of the oldest horologer living. He was going to 
sell that clock, he said. An old family heirloom, and 
a genuine curiosity of antiquity, which he would not 
ordinarily take thousands of dollars for, but which he 
sold now because he was out of work, penniless; and 
when his wife and children cried to him for bread, he 
could not say them nay when he had that in his 
possession that would, in any intelligent community, 
bring them food and plenty. 

"Gentlemen," he said, "look at that clock. A relic 
of antiquity. One of the oldest Chinese clepsydras in 
the world. Bamboo case and sandal-wood running gear. 
Not an ounce of metal in its construction. Made in 
China by the eminent horologer Tchin Pitshoo, as near 
as can be ascertained, three hundred years after the 
flood. Worth a thousand dollars if it's worth a cent; 
but of course I don't expect to get half its value in these 
hard times. The inscription on the face is in the char- 



148 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

acters of the purest Confucian Chinese, and the interpre- 
tation of them is, " Time flies and money is twelve per 
cent." Now what are you going to give me for that 
clock? Who will buy this clock, and present it to the 
Iowa Historical Society or the Burlington Library? How 
much? Start her up; send her ahead at something, 
gentlemen; there's a woman and five children that haven't 
had a bite to eat for two days, and can't get a crumb till 
the money for this clock is in my pocket. A marvelous 
time-piece; never lost " 

A man in brown overalls and a dirty face lounged up 
to the clock, and after scratching the case with a pin, to 
assure himself that it was really a genuine Chinese clep- 
sydra, bid ten cents. 

" Ten cents ! " roared the man, rolling his eyes — 
" Heaven, hold back your lightnings ! Don't strike him 
dead just yet! Give him time to repent. Ten cents to 
buy food for a starving woman and five children. Ten 

cents for a d " He choked with emotion, and could 

not go on for a moment. *' Ten cents ! Why, that clock 
only has to be wound once a month, and it records every 
minute of time; tells just how long it will take you to 
get to the depot; tells when the train starts* and when 
the children are late to school. This clock, gentlemen, 
will tell when the oldest boy has played hookey and gone 
off fishing; it tells how late the hired girl's beau stays 
Sunday night, and it will register the exact minute of our 
oldest daughter's arrival and departure at and from the 
front gate after ten o'clock at night. Why, after you've 
had it six weeks, you'll not take six hundred dollars for 
it. It runs fast all day and slow all night, giving a man 
fourteen hours' sleep in the Winter and sixteen hours' 
sleep in the Summer, without disturbing the accurate 
average of the day a minute. Ten cents for such a clock 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 49 

as that! Ten cents! Gentlemen, this is robbery; it's 
cold-blooded murder. At ten cents; at ten, at ten, atten, 
atten, attenat-tennit-tennit-tennet-tenatenatenaten a-a-t 
ten cents only am I offered, twenty do I hear? At ten — " 

An old rag man, after a critical examination of the 
marvel, bid fifteen cents, and was instantly regarded as a 
mortal enemy by the first bidder. 

"Fifteen cents! " exclaimed the seller. "Gentlemen, 
knock me down and rob me of my clothes, strip me naked 
if you will, but don't plunder a gasping, starving woman 
and five weak, helpless babes. Don't rob the dying. 
Fifteen cents. Why, I've suffered more than three hun- 
dred dollars' worth of privation and sorrow and misery, 
rather than sell this clock at all. Fifteen cents. Why, 
you set that clock where the sun shines on it, and it will 
indicate a rain storm three days in advance, and will tell 
where the lightning is going to strike. Why, you could 
make millions by buying this clock to bet on. It will tell, 
just three weeks be-fore election, who is going to beat. 
It's a" credit to any household, and will run the whole 
family on tick. Fifteen cents ! why, it won't pay for the 
shelf you stand it on, Fifteen cents for a clock that 
used to be owned by an emperor ! Fifteen cents. Oh, 
kill me dead. At fifteen cents, fifteen, fiftn, fiftn, fift, 
nfift, nfift, nfiftnfiftnfift, ta-a-a-t fifteen cents for a clock 
that can't be duplicated this §j.de of the Yang tse Kiang. 
At fifteen ce — thank you sir, twenty cents I have ; twenty 
cents to feed a starving family of seven souls; twenty 
cents for a barefooted woman and five ragged children 
that haven't tasted food since Monday morning; twenty 
cents, from a city of thirty thousand inhabitants, for a 
starving family ; there's Christian philanthropy for you. 
Twenty cents from the commercial capital of Iowa, for a 
clock that would be snapped up anywhere else in the 

6* 



l£o RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

world at hundreds, merely for its antiquity; there's intel- 
ligent appreciation of the arts and culture for you. 
Gentlemen, I can't stand this much longer; my heart is 
breaking. Twenty cents, twenty cents, twenty, twent, 
twen, twen, twentwentwen, and sold — a thousand -dollar 
clock, starving woman, dying children, heart-broken man, 
and all to the second-hand-store man for twenty cents. " 

He took his money, a ragged shinplaster and two street 
car nickels, and walked away with a dejected, heart- 
broken air. He stopped in at a bakery with frosted win- 
dows and transient doors, to buy bread for his starving 
wife and babes, and his voice was husky with emotion as 
he said to the natty-looking baker, whose diamond pin 
glittered over the walnut counter, 

"Gimme a plain sour/' 



THE ROMANCE OF THE CARPET. 



BASKING in peace, in the warm Spring sun, 
South Hill smiled upon Burlington. 

The breath of May ! and the day was fair, 
And the bright motes danced in the balmy air, 

And the sunlight gleamed where the restless breeze 
Kissed the fragrant blooms on the apple trees. 

His beardless cheek with a smile was spanned 
As he stood with a carriage-whip in his hand. 

And he laughed as he doffed his bob-tailed coat, 
And the echoing folds of the carpet smote. 




ROMANCE OF THE CARPET. 



AND OTHER. HAWK - EYETEMS. 153 

And she smiled as she leaned on her busy mop, 
And said she would tell him when to stop. 

So he pounded away till the dinner bell 
Gave him a little breathing spell. 

But he sighed when the kitchen clock struck one ; 
And she said the carpet wasn't done. 

But he lovingly put in his biggest licks, 

And pounded like mad till the clock struck six. 

And she said, in a dubious kind of way, 

That she guessed he could finish it up next day. 

Then all that day, and the next day too, 
The fuzz from the dustless carpet flew. 

And she'd give it a look at eventide, 
And say, " Now beat on the other side." 

And the new days came as the old days went, 
And the landlord came for his regular rent. 

And the neighbors laughed at the tireless boom, 
And his face was shadowed with clouds of gloom; 

Till at last, one cheerless Winter day, 
He kicked at the carpet and slid away, 

Over the fence and down the street, 
Speeding away with footsteps fleet ; 

And never again the morning sun 
Smiled at him beating his carpet drum ; 



154 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

And South Hill often said, with a yawn, 
" Where has the carpet martyr gone ? " 



Years twice twenty had come and passed, 
And the carpet swayed in the autumn blast ; 

For never yet, since that bright spring time, 
Had it ever been taken down from the line. 

Over the fence a gray-haired man 
Cautiously dim, dome, clem, clum, clam; 

He found him a stick in the old woodpile, 
And he gathered it up with a sad, grim smile. 

A flush passed over his face forlorn 

As he gazed at the carpet, tattered and torn; 

And he hit it a most resounding thwack, 
Till the startled air gave its echoes back. 

And out of the window a white face leaned, 
And a palsied hand the sad eyes screened. 

She knew his face — she gasped, she sighed : 
" A little more on the under side/' 

Right down on the ground his stick he throwed, 
And he shivered and muttered, "Well, I am blowed! 

And he turned away, with a heart full sore, 
And he never was seen, not none no more. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 55 



SODDING AS A FINE ART. 



ONE day, early in the Spring, Mr. Blosberg, who 
lives out on Ninth Street, made up his mind that 
he would sod his front yard himself, and when he had 
formed this public - spirited resolution, he proceeded to 
put it into immediate execution. He cut his sod, in 
righteous and independent and liberty-loving disregard 
of the ridiculous city ordinance in relation thereto, from 
the patches of verdure that the cows had permitted 
to obtain a temporary growth along the side of the 
street, and proceeded to beautify his front yard there- 
with. Just as he had laid the first sod, Mr. Thwackery, 
his next door neighbor, passed by. 

"Good land, Blosberg," he shouted, "you'll never be 
able to make any thing of such a sod as that. Why, its 
three inches too thick. That sod will cake up and dry 
like a brick. You want to shave at least two inches and 
a half off the bottom of it, so the roots of the grass will 
grow into the ground and unite the sod with the earth. 
That sod is thick enough for a corner stone." 

So Mr. Blosberg took the spade and shaved the sod 
down until it was thin and about as pliable as a buck- 
wheat cake, and Mr. Thwackery pronounced it all right 
and sure to grow, and passed on. Just as Mr. Blosberg 
got it laid down the second time, old Mr. Templeton, who 
lived on the next block, came along and leaned on the 
fence, intently observing the sodder's movements. 

" Well now, Blosberg/' he said at length, " I did think 
you had better sense than that. Don't you know a sod 



156 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

will never grow on that hard ground ? You must spade 
it all up first, and break the dirt up fine and soft to the 
depth of at least four inches, or the grass can never take 
root in it. Don't waste your time and sod by putting 
grass on top of such a baked brick-floor as that." 

And Mr. Blosberg laid aside the sod and took up the 
spade and labored under Mr. Templeton's directions 
until the ground was all properly prepared for the sod, 
and then Mr. Templeton, telling him that sod couldn't 
die on that ground now if he tried to kill it, went his way 
and Mr. Blosberg picked up that precious sod a third 
time, and prepared to put it in its place. Before he had 
fairly poised it over the spot, however, his hands were 
arrested by a terrific shout, and looking up he saw Major 
Bladgers shaking his cane at him over the fence. 

"Blosberg, you insufferable donkey," roared the Major, 
u don't you know that you'll lose every blade of grass 
you can carry if you put your sod on that dry ground ? 
There you've gone and cut it so thin that all the roots 
of the grass are cut and bleeding, and you must soak 
that ground with water until it is a perfect pulp, so that 
the roots will sink right into it, and draw nutrition from 
the moist earth. Wet her down, Blosberg, if you want 
to see your labor result in any thing." 

So Mr. Blosberg put the sod aside again, and went and 
pumped water and carried it around in buckets until his 
back ached like a soft corn, and when he had finally 
transformed the front yard into a morass, the major was 
satisfied, and assuring Mr. Blosberg that his sod would 
grow beautifully now, even if he laid it on upside down, 
marched away, and Mr. Blosberg made a fourth effort to 
put the first sod in its place. He got it down and was 
going back after another, when old Mrs. Tweedlebug 
checked him in his wild career. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 157 

" Lawk, Mr. Blosberg, ye musn't go off an' leave that 
sod lying that way. You must take the spade and beat 
it down hard, till it is all flat and level, and close to the 
ground everywhere. You must pound it hard, or the 
weeds will all start up under it and crowd out the grass." 

Mr. Blosberg went back, and stooping over the sod hit 
it a resounding thwack with his spade that shot great 
gouts and splotches of mud all over the parlor windows 
and half way to the top of the house, and some of it 
came flying into his face and on his clothes, while a mis- 
cellaneous shower made it dangerous even for his adviser, 
who, with a feeble shriek of disapprobation, went hastily 
away, digging raw mud out of her ears. Mr. Blosberg 
didn't know how long to keep on pounding, and he didn't 
see Mrs. Tweedlebug go away, so he stood with his spade 
poised in the air and his eyes shut tight, waiting for 
instructions. And as he waited he was surprised to hear 
a new voice accost him. It was the voice of Mr. Thistle- 
pod, the old agriculturist, of whom Mr. Blosberg bought 
his apples and butter. 

" Hello, Mr. Blosberg ! " he shouted, in tones which 
indicated that he either believed Mr. Blosberg to be 
stone deaf or two thousand miles away. 

Mr. Blosberg winked violently to get the soil out of 
his eyes, and turned in the direction of the noise to say, 
"Good evening." 

" Soddin', hey ? " asked Mr. Thistlepod. 

" Trying to, sir," replied Mr. Blosberg, rather cautiously. 

" 'Spect it will grow, hey ? " 

Mr. Blosberg, having learned by very recent experience 
how liable his plans were to be overthrown, was still non- 
committal, and replied that " he hoped so." 

" Wal, if ye hope so, ye mustn't go to poundin' yer sod 
to pieces with that spade. Ye don't want to ram it down 



158 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

so dad binged tight and hard there can't no air git at the 
roots. Ye must shake that sod up a little, so as to 
loosen it, and then jest press it down with yer foot ontwil 
it jest teches the ground nicely all round. Sod's too 
thin, anyhow." 

So Mr. Blosberg thrust his hands into the nasty mud 
under his darling, much abused sod, and spread his 
fingers wide apart to keep it from breaking to pieces as 
he raised it, and finally got it loosened up and pressed 
down to Mr. Thistlepod's satisfaction, who then told him 
he didn't believe he could make that sod grow any way, 
and drove away. Then Mr. Blosberg stepped back to 
look at that sod, feeling confident that he had got 
through with it, when young Mr. Simpson came along* 

" Hello, Bios, old boy ; watchu doin' ? " 

Mr. Blosberg timorously answered that he was sodding 
a little. Then Mr. Simpson pressed his lips very tightly 
together to repress a smile, and let his cheeks swell and 
bulge out to the size of toy balloons with suppressed 
merriment, and finally burst into a snort of derisive 
laughter that made the windows rattle in the houses on 
the other side of the street, and he went on, leaving Mr. 
Blosberg somewhat nettled and a little discouraged. He 
stood, with his fingers spread wide apart, holding his 
arms out like wings, and wondering whether he had 
better go get another sod or go wash his hands, when a 
policeman came by, and paused. " Soddin' ? " he asked, 
sententiously. 

" Yes, sir, a little," replied Mr. Blosberg, respectfully. 

" Where 'd you get your sod ? " inquired the representa- 
tive of public order. 

Mr. Blosberg dolefully indicated the little bare paral- 
lelogram in the scanty patch of verdure as his base of 
supplies. 



AND OTHER HAWK- EYETEMS. 159 

"You're the man I've been lookin' for," replied public 
order. "You come along with me." 

And Mr. Blosberg went along, and the Police Judge 
fined him $11 95, and when Mr. Blosberg got home he 
found that a cow had got into his yard during his absence 
and stepped on that precious sod five times, and put her 
foot clear through it every time, so that it looked like a 
patch of moss rolled up in a wad, more than a sod. And 
then Mr. Blosberg fell on his knees and raised his hands 
to heaven, and registered a vow that he would never 
plant another sod if this whole fertile world turned into 
a Sahara for want of his aid. 



THE AMENITIES OF POLITICS. 



" '"T^HERE is one thing," said Mr. Leatherby, as he 
X was walking down town one drizzling, disagree- 
able morning during the last presidential campaign, 
" that disgusts me with politics, and that is, the violent 
and abusive tone in which our daily papers conduct the 
discussion of every issue and question which they touch 
upon." 

" Indeed you may well be disgusted at it," replied old 
Mr. Bartholomew, who had just joined him. " It is as 
much as a man can do to lift a newspaper off his door 
step with a pair of tongs. Time and again I throw the 
paper down half read, and I have seriously thought of 
stopping it altogether, for I consider its presence in my 
family a contamination." 

"It is, in truth," replied Mr. Leatherby; "it is worse 



l6o RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

than a contamination. It is corrupting; it has a degrad- 
ing, brutalizing influence, that is, I am convinced, under- 
mining the foundations of our moral structure. The daily 
press of to-day is one great engine of abuse, defamation, 
bad grammar, worse language and worst morals." 

" I can not see, for my part," said Mr. Bartholomew, 
"why men cannot discuss politics as freely, as earnestly, 
and as entirely free from acrimonious expressions and 
feeling, as purely exempt from abusive language of any 
kind, from any heat and anger, in fact, as they could 
discuss the grade of a street or the style of a coat." 

"And so think I," said Mr. Leatherby. "I can not, 
for my part, conceive of an intellect so warped and nar- 
row, a mind so shallow, that it can not carry on a discus- 
sion upon any question in politics without falling into the 
asperities, vulgarity, abusive detraction, and shameful 
slander that is the reproach and disgrace of the newspa- 
per press." 

" It is a form of idiocy, I believe," replied old Mr. 
Bartholomew. " It is an indication of a feeble mind that 
looks upon abuse as an argument, and bullying as logic. 
I am and always have been a Republican, but I can 
express my disapproval of many Democratic measures in 
a gentlemanly manner; and if I had not mind enough to 
keep my temper, I would consider that I had no right to 
talk politics." 

"You are perfectly correct," rejoined Mr. Leatherby, 
earnestly; "and while we disagree on some points in 
political controversy, I being a life-long Democrat, yet we 
can freely and with mutual pleasure, and, I trust, profit, 
meet and discuss our differences in a friendly way, with- 
out giving way to the insane and detestable exhibition 
of temper, ignorance, and prejudice which marks the tone 
of the morning paper." 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. l6l 

" I had not noticed it so much in the Hawkeye" replied 
Mr. Bartholomew, with a show of awakening interest in 
the conversation ; " but when that trashy Democratic sheet 
that pollutes the evening air is brought to me by my 
neighbor, an ignorant dolt who can neither read nor write, 
but takes the paper as a party duty, and asks me to read 
it for him, I am amazed that the gods of truth and 
decency do not annihilate the infamous, puerile sheet 
with their thunderbolts." 

"You must bear in mind, however," rejoined Mr. 
Leatherby, speaking a trifle louder than was necessary in 
addressing a companion whose hand was resting on his 
arm, " the Gazette has such a tide of corruption, such an 
avalanche of political bigotry and villainy to rebuke, that 
its voice mast be raised in order to be heard: and it must 
speak boldly, defiantly, and in the thunder tones of 
righteous denunciation, to startle the people into a real- 
izing sense of the peril which threatens the country from 
Republican misrule and tyranny." 

" By George ! " shouted Mr. Bartholomew, " the Repub- 
lican party is the last, the only bulwark between the 
republic and eternal ruin. I tell you, sir, once let the 
Democratic party obtain control of this government, once 
let that infamous organization of political thieves, knucks, 
outlaws, and castaways take charge of our political 
machinery, and we will find ourselves in the hands of a 
horde of the most abandoned profligates, the most utterly 
unprincipled, the most vicious, demoralized, unconscion- 
able, diabolical set of scoundrels that ever cheated the 
gallows." 

" By the long- horned spoon ! " roared Mr. Leatherby, 
jerking his arm away from Mr. Bartholomew's hand; "if 
the satanic and infernal plans of the Republican party 
were carried out, with all their attendant knavery and 



162 



debauchery, this government would be a rule of branded 
malefactors and convicts, a government of felons, a penal 
colony in which the most hopelessly irreclaimable, grace- 
less villains would administer the law. The bad faith 
of the Republican party, its ignominious record, its vicious 
tendencies, has shocked the Christian world, and " 

"You're a liar!" yelled Mr. Bartholomew, "and you 
are just like the rest of your besotted, low-lived, ignorant 
class — a low, mean, pitiful, beggarly, unscrupulous and 
treacherous set, whose impudence in asking for the votes 
of honorable men is only equaled by your rapacious and 
unbridled greed for office; your " 

" You are an old fool ! " howled Mr. Leatherby ; " a 
censorious, clamorous, scurrilous, foul-tongued old repro- 
bate, and I disgrace my name when I talk to you on the 
street. You mistake vituperation and abuse for argument, 
and you reply to a simple plain statement of facts with 
malignant and defamatory slander and calumny, because 
you can't answer." 

"Shut up!" shrieked Mr. Bartholomew. " Don't you 
say another word to me, or I'll slap your ugly mouth ! 
By George, I'll kick yonr head off! " 

" You can't do it ! " roared Mr. Leatherby, pulling off 
his coat, and dancing around Mr. Bartholomew. " I can 
lick the whole Republican party, from the big whisky thief 
and ring master in the White House down to the sneak 
thief that picks pockets at mass meetings ! I can " 

"You're a fighting liar, and you daren't take it up !" 
howled Mr. Bartholomew, pulling off his coat. 

Then Mr. Leatherby ran up and kicked him twice 
while he was struggling in the arms of his coat, but the 
old gentleman got loose in a flash and hit Mr. Leatherby 
a resounding thwack on the nose with his cane, and when 
Mr. Leatherby stopped to hold a handkerchief over his 



AND OTHER H AWK - EYETEMS, 1 63 

bleeding proboscis, Mr. Bartholomew got in a couple more 
real good ones with his cane ; then Mr. Leatherby went 
for the rocks in the macadamized street. He broke two 
windows in a grocery before he hit Mr. Bartholomew, 
when he caught the old gentleman on the side of the 
head and dropped him. Then Mr. Bartholomew took to 
the stone pile and hit a young lady on the other side of 
the street, and Mr. Leatherby hurled a tremendous big 
rock, which missed the old gentleman and blacked the 
eye of a policeman who was coming to separate them, 
but was so incensed that he arrested them, and they were 
each fined $10 and costs for fighting in the street. And 
they both firmly believe that the unbridled hatred and 
unreasonable recriminations and abuse of the daily 
papers are iniquitous in their influence, and should be 
suppressed for the good of society. 



It was a sad scene when the authorities took a pooi 
man from Happy Hollow, and sent him out to the poor 
house. The parting between the poor man and his 
eleven dogs, which he distributed among his sympathiz- 
ing relatives, was affecting in the extreme. We believe 
the man had a few children, too, but not enough to make 
a fuss about. 

A bashful young man, while out driving with the 
dearest girl in the world, had to get out and buckle the 
crupper, and hesitatingly exclaimed that " the animal's 
bustle had come loose." 



164 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



A THRILLING ENCOUNTER. 



IT happens, once in a while, that even the ordinary 
routine of the editorial sanctum is broken by incidents 
and scenes that are fairly dramatic in their character. 
As we write, there comes back to us the reminiscence of 
a quiet, sleepy Summer afternoon, only a few short years 
ago. The very flies in the sanctum buzzed lazily about 
the room, oppressed by the heat and the quiet loneliness 
of the place, when the door opened with a quick, sudden 
snap, and we turned and saw a woman stepping into the 
room. She was not old, and her face, haggard with care 
and seamed with trouble, still bore traces of great beauty. 
She came into the office with a quick, nervous tread, and 
there was a hunted look in her eyes that betrayed the 
fugitive. She closed the door behind her, and turned the 
key in almost the same motion, with the quick instinctive 
manner of a person who had fallen into the habit of 
isolating herself from observation and pursuit at every 
opportunity. She refused to sit down, but said: 

" I can tell you all you will want to know about me in 
very few words— I am a fugitive." 

We told her we had guessed as much, and we besought 
her to confide nothing to us. We could not help her, we 
said; our duty as a journalist would not. permit us to 
extend any aid to a person flying from the law. She 
said: 

"I do not want you to aid me in farther flight; I am 
tired to death. My own conscience, more pitiless than 
the minions of the law, has pursued me for years with a 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 165 

whip of scorpions. I can not escape its terrible lashings. 
I can not fly from my punishment if I would, and I am 
anxious it should be over. Death would be a welcome 
relief, if it would but come." 

Again we told the panting, weary creature to tell none 
of her story to us, and advised her to go to the police 
headquarters and give herself into the hands of the law, 
which would deal justly, and, we had no doubt, in view 
of her sufferings and remorse, mercifully with her. 

"I can not!" she exclaimed, covering her face with 
her hands, and breaking into convulsive sobs : " I 
can not, I can not. You do not know there are other 
hearts would ache if I gave myself up and told all. I 
want to tell my story to some one who will pity me and 
advise me. There are those whose hands are as dark 
with ineffaceable stains as mine are, but who do not suffer 
the mental agony that oppresses me. Shall I, in order 
to escape the lashings of my own conscience, consign 
these, whose lives are happy and whose hearts know no 
remorse, to the same punishment for which I yearn?" 

We asked her (for our curiosity conquered our caution) 
if it was possible that one so young and fair was the 
center of a wide-spreading circle of crime, that held in 
its horrid entanglements so many others beside herself? 

"Aye," she said, bit erly. "If I went to the gallows 
through a court of justice, I would lead with me, held by 
the same terrible links of evidence, a guilty train of men 
hardened in crime, and their hands steeped in innocent 
blood!" 

"Woman, woman!" we exclaimed, in horrified tones, 
" in the name of heaven, who and what are you ? " 

" Oh, heaven help me ! " she shrieked, in a voice that 
chilled our marrow — "I am old man Bender!" 

A weird, wild whoop rent the silence of the sanctum — 



1 66 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

and the woman was alone. There was a sound as of a 
rising journalist scrambling up through the narrow copy 
tube, and the next instant a bare head, with a quill over 
one ear, burst through the hatchway in the roof, and, 
followed by a complete set of editorial anatomy, emerged, 
and running briskly to the rear wall of the building, 
disappeared down the lightning-rod, and was seen no 
more until the next day at three P. M. 

We never saw the woman again, and wis not where 
she is, but we smile in bitter derision whenever we read 
that the police have arrested an old man answering the 
description of old man Bender. 



FIVE WOMEN. 



ONE afternoon five women went out on South Hill in 
a street car. One of them was a fat woman in a 
black dress, with a cameo pin as large as a stucco orna- 
ment. She breathed at a high pressure, about 103 to the 
minute. A woman with a thin, long neck, and sad eyes, 
and a Paisley shawl, sitting on the other side of the car, 
said, in a feeble voice : 

; * Good afternoon, Mrs. Waughop." 

"Oh, (puff) Mrs. Dresseldorff, (puff, puff,) how do 
(puff) you do?" (Puff, puff.) 

" Oh, I ain't feeling well at all. I've had so much 
trouble with my lungs, and nothing seems to do them 
any good. I've tried onion gargle, and three kinds of 
expectorant, and Wine of Tar, and two of Doctor 
Bolus's prescriptions, and one of Dr. Bleadem's, and a 




GOBLIN GATE. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 67 

new kind of ointment, but nothing seems to have any 
effect on them. How do you feel to-day ? " 

" Oh," groaned' Mrs. Waughop, " I'm not getting on at 
all. My asthma is worse every day (puff, puff), and I 
can't sleep at night, and I'm afraid I'll have to give up 
entirely (puff, puff). I could hardly get out to-day 
( puff, puff, puff). I went to Greenbaum and Schroder's 
and around to Guest's and down to Carpenter's ( puff, 
puff), and into Parsons' and up to Mrs. Voorhees' (puff, 
puff), and down to Wyman's and up to Wesley Jones' 
and into Gus Dodge's and ( puff, puff, puff) down to the 
express office, and then by the time I had made a couple 
of calls out on North Hill and went to the doctor's, I 
was as tired as though I had walked a mile ( puff, puff, 
puff). I don't know what's going to become of me, I'm 
sure. How are you, this afternoon, Mrs. Dinkleman?' , 
she continued, turning to the next woman, a lonesome 
looking female with a wart on her chin, who smiled dis- 
mally on being addressed and paused in the midst of a 
search for a street car nickel in the bottom of a black 
reticule as big as a hair trunk. 

" I'm about half down with the chills," she said, with 
a prolonged sigh ; " I have such a fever every night, I 
don't get two hours' sleep out of the twenty -four, and 
I'm afraid I'll be down sick before I get through with it. 
My eyesight is failing, too, and I have a constant head- 
ache that worries me nearly to death. I am glad, Mrs. 
Mulligan," said Mrs. Dinkleman, turning to the fourth 
woman, "to see you able to be out." 

Mrs. Mulligan bowed feebly to the rest of the ladies. 
"Indeed I oughtn't to be out," she groaned, " I ought to 
be in bed this minute. I haven't had this flannel off my 
throat for three weeks, and I'm afraid I'll lose my voice 
entirely. I've had a misery across my back since I don't 



170 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

know when, and I had to have three teeth pulled this 
blessed afternoon. I was that bad with the rheumatiz 
all last week I didn't dare stir out of the house, and I've 
got a felon coming on my finger just as sure as I'm a liv- 
ing woman. What appears to be the matter with your 
face, Mrs. Gallagher ? " she asked the last woman in the 
car. 

"Neuralagy of the eyes," the last woman, who wore 
black glasses and green goggles, remarked, in such 
lugubrious tones that they cast a gloom over the entire 
community, and the masculine Occupants of the car 
wondered if there was a well woman in America. 



THE GOBLIN GATE. 



WE once knew a most worthy man, whose irreproach- 
able life was at one time threatened with 'mental 
and physical wreck, all on account of his front gate. He 
lived out on North Hill, with his charming wife and seven 
lovely daughters. He was a pale-faced, anxious-looking 
man, who moved about and looked and spoke as though 
he supped with sorrow seven times a week. He has, 
with all those seven lovely daughters, only one front gate, 
and that's what made him pale. In one Summer he 
spent $217 repairing that front gate — putting in new ones, 
and experimenting with various kinds of hinges; and 
afterall that, the gate swung all through the Winter on 
a leather strap and a piece of clothes-line — and there 
was peace in the household, and the man grew fat. But 
when the April days were nigh, it soon became apparent 



and Other hawk - eyetems. 171 

to the man that his troubles were at hand, and anxiety- 
soon drove the roses from his damask cheeks and robbed 
his ribs of their substance. He used to climb over the 
back fence, to avoid calling attention to the disreputable 
looking old gate; but his self-denial was of no avail. 
One evening his eldest daughter, Sophronia, said : 

" Pa, that horrid old gate is the most disgusting thing 
on Fifth Street. If you can't afford to have it fixed, I'd 
take it away and put up a stile." 

And pa only groaned. But an evening or so later, his 
youngest daughter, Elfrida, came in and said, with con- 
siderable warmth : 

" Pa ! I wish you had that beastly old gate tied to your 
neck; that's what I wish!" 

And she dissolved in tears, and evaporated up stairs 
in a misty cloud, while her sisters followed slowly, casting 
reproachful glances at pa. And the next evening, his 
third daughter, Azalea, came bouncing into the room, 
about 9: 30 P. M., with her gloves in a condition to indi- 
cate that she had been patting gravel, and said, with 
some energy, that if pa had no feeling, other people had; 
and she wished she was dead, she did; and she hoped 
that the next time pa went out of that hateful oldx gate, 
he'd fall clear from Fifth Street to the bridge, so she did. 
And she broke down, and disappeared with a staecato 
accompaniment of sobs and sniffles. And the next time pa 
went out of that gate, he found it prostrate between the 
two posts, and saw that the fragile strands of the clothes- 
line had parted, under some extraordinary pressure; and 
that was what ailed Azalea's gloves. Pa saw there was 
nothing for it but a new gate, and he groaned aloud as he 
viewed the dreary prospect of furnishing gates to support 
the manly forms of the best young men of Burlington for 
another Summer. It soon became evident that he was 



172 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

getting up a gate he could match against time. He 
pondered, and pondered, and pondered. He became the 
confidant of carpenters; he was often seen guiltily 
showing certain plans and drawings to blacksmiths and 
cunning workers in iron and steel. And in due time he 
had a new gate up; a massive gate, with great posts, 
ornamental and substantial — and the seven sisters were 
pleased. They read the little brass plate, that informed 
them that a patent was applied for, and they saw the 
words, "For 130 pounds;" but they didn't know what 
it meant until the gate had swung on the uneven tenor 
of its way about a week. 

One evening, the weather, though sufficiently cool to 
be bracing, admitted a test of the new gate. A murmur 
of voices arose from the vicinity of that popular lovers' 
retreat, as Sophronia swung idly to and fro on its heavy 
frame. Presently, a pale-faced, anxious- looking man, 
who was holding his hand upon his - breast to still his 
beating heart, as he crouched in a dark corner of the 
porch, heard Rodolphus say: 

"But believe me, Sophronia, my own heart's idol, 
between the touches of the rude hand of time and the 

unkind " As he began the word, he leaned forward 

and bent his weight upon the gate, and with a sharp click 
a little trap-door in the side of the post flew open, and a 
gaunt, many-jointed arm of steel, with an iron knob as 
big as a Virginia gourd on the end of it, flew out, 
and, with the rapidity of lightning, hit Rodolphus two 
resounding pelts between the shoulders, that sounded 
like a bass drum explosion. 

"Oh-h-h! gosh! r ' he roared, "I'm stabbed! I'm 
stabbed!" and, without waiting to pick up his hat, fled, 
shrieking for the doctor; while Sophronia rushed into the 
house, crying, "Pa! pa! pa! Rodolphus is shot!" and 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 173 

swooned. The pale-faced man said nothing, but shrank 
still further back into the shadow, and thrust his hand- 
kerchief into his mouth to stifle a smile. Pretty soon he 
knew the voice of his daughter Azalea at the gate, saying 
"Good night." But a rich, manly voice detained her; 
and the measured swing of the gate was again heard in 
the distance. Soon he heard Lorenzo say, as he made 
ready to climb upon the gate : 

"But whatever of sorrow may await our future, dear 
one, I would it might fall upon me " 

And just as he lifted his last foot from the ground, the 
trap opened, and the gaunt arm reached out and fell 
upon him, with that big knob, four times ; and every time 
it reached him, Lorenzo shrieked : 

"Bleeding heart! Oh, mercy, mercy, Mr. Man! Oh, 
murder! " 

And as he ambled away in the starlight, wailing for 
arnica, Azalea fled wildly to her home, shrieking, " Oh 
pa, pa, pa! somebody is murdering Lorenzo!" And on 
the porch a pale-faced man thrust the rim of his felt hat 
into his mouth, to reinforce his handkerchief, and hugged 
himself in placid content. Pretty soon the man's fifth 
daughter came home from a party, and she, too, perched 
on the gate; and, in a moment or two, Alphonso said: 

"But, my own Miriam, would I could tell you what I 
feel for you " 

But he didn't ; for, just as he leaned upon the gate, 
the gaunt arm reached out and felt for him with about 
seventy-five pounds of iron, and knocked his breath so 
far out of him that he couldn't shriek until he had run 
half a mile away from the house. And Miriam ran into 
the house, screaming that Alphonso had a fit. 

And the pale-faced man rose up out of the shadow and 
emptied his mouth; and as he stood under the quiet 



174 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE,, 

starlight, looking at the gate whose powerful but delicate 
mechanism repelled every ounce of weight over 130 
pounds, a look of ineffable peace stole over the pale face, 
and the smile that rested on the quiet features told that 
the struggle of a life-time was ended in victory — and a 
gate had been discovered that could set at naught the 
oppressions of thoughtless young people. 



THE AUTOMATIC CLOTHES-LINE REEL. 



NO one who lived in Burlington that year, can ever 
forget the first practical test that was made of 
the famous "Domestic Automatic" clothes-line reel. 
It was a curious and powerful bit of mechanism, and was 
the invention of a man who lived on Barnes Street. This 
man used to be grievously afflicted because the Scandi- 
navian lady who superintended the weekly wash day 
ceremonies at his house always took great pains to leave 
a net work of clothes line spread all around his back 
3^ard. And when he made complaint to her about it she 
addressed him in the musical accents of Christine Nils- 
son's native language, and overwhelmed him with a 
torrent of eloquence that he could not understand. And 
when he remonstrated with his wife and daughter about 
it they laughed him to scorn, and his daughter, who was 
educated at Vassar, and can hustle her terrified parent 
out of the house with one hand, told him if he interfered 
any more in that department around that house he'd get 
drowned in the wash tub. So this man suffered. One 
bitter cold Winter morning he ran out to the wood-shed 
after some kindling, and the first line caught him under 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 175 

the chin and pulled his neck out till it was a foot long, 
and he ran into the house and frightened his wife into 
fi,ts by his terrible appearance, and she threatened to 
apply for a divorce if he ever made faces at her that way 
again. It was nearly three hours before his neck shrunk 
back to its natural size. And a few nights after that, he 
was all dressed to go to a party with his family, and he 
went bounding down the back yard to see that the alley 
gate was fastened, and a slack line caught him amidships, 
let him run out the slack, and then when it hauled taut, 
just picked him up, tossed the breath out of him, turned 
him clear over, and chucked him down on his back, split- 
ting his coat from the tail-buttons to the neck. And he 
couldn't move, and he couldn't speak, and he couldn't 
even breathe, only about thirty cents on the dollar, so he 
couldn't answer his wife and daughter when they screamed 
to him that they were ready, and they concluded that he 
had run away to avoid going with them, so they went off 
without him, and never came back till eleven o'clock, and 
the man lay out in the back yard all that time, trying to 
die. And one time after that, he was jogging across the 
back yard with his arms full of about three hundred 
pounds of hard wood, and he was laughing like a hyena 
at something he had read in The Ilawkeye, when a 
clothes prop slipped just as he passed under the line and 
dropped on his head, raising a lump as big as an egg, 
and as he fell forward, another line caught right in his 
mouth, and sawed it clear back to his ears, so that when 
he smiled the top of his head only hung on a hinge. 

Well, these things naturally weighed on his mind and 
depressed him, but they set him to thinking, and he went 
to work and invented a patent clothes-line reel, which 
was inclosed in a heavy cast-iron box, and was worked 
by a powerful automatic arrangement. You only had .to 



I76 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

wind up the box and set it for a certain hour, just like 
an alarm clock, and at that hour the reel would go off, 
and pull on the line like a team of mules, the spring 
hook at the other end of the line would let go its 
hold, and that line would be rolled up at the rate 
of a thousand miles a minute. He said nothing 
about his invention, but put up the box and told some 
lie about it to his family, which is a way men have, and 
he set it for 7 o'clock P. M., and wound it up strong. 
Then he watched Miss Nilsson's compatriot run out the 
line and adjust the hook, and he went away. 

About 7 o'clock that evening, while he was toasting 
his feet at the fire and reading the almanac, the family 
were disturbed by unmistakable indications of a fight 
going on in the back yard between a hurricane and an 
earthquake, in which the earthquake appeared to be get- 
ting a little the best. of it. The affrighted family rushed 
to the back door and looked out upon a scene of devas- 
tation and anarchy. The air was full of fragments of 
linen, and cotton, and red flannel, while shirt buttons, 
clothes pins, and little brass buckles, were flying like 
hail. The reel in the iron box was making about 60,000 
revolutions a minute, and was whirling around like a 
thrashing machine, and the line was tearing around the 
posts like a streak of runaway lightning, and the clothes 
were trying to keep along with it, and around the posts 
they were ripping, tearing and snapping more than any 
cyclone that ever got loose, while where the line shot into 
the hawse-hole in the iron box, the striped stockings and 
white shirts and things, and flannels, and yarn socks, and 
undershirts and more things, and aprons, and handker- 
chiefs, and sheets and things, and pillow slips, just foamed 
and bulged, and tossed wildly, and ripped, and tore, and 
scraped, until the yard and air were so full of lint that it 




WORKING OF THE AUTOMATIC REEL. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS, 179 

looked worse than an arctic snow storm. Oh, it was 
dreadful. It was terrible. Everybody shrieked in 
dismay. 

" Somebody's at the clothes line \" screamed the man's 
daughter. 

" Good heavens ! " yelled the man, " hadn't you taken 
the clothes in ? " 

" No ! " chorused the women. 

The man thought he would save what was left. He 
sprang at the clothes line. He caught the flying hook 
at the end with both hands, and the next instant, before 
the terrified eyes of his shrieking wife and daughter, he 
was jerked through the hole in the iron box, a quivering 
mass of boneless flesh, while his glistening skeleton fell 
rattling upon the porch. 

They gathered his frame work off the porch, and 
unlocked the box and drew out his covering. He was 
not dead, so deftly and quickly had he been removed 
from his framework. They sent for the doctors, but their 
skill could not avail to get the man together again, and 
now he sits, limp and boneless, in a high-backed easy 
chair, smiling sadly at his grinning skeleton, which sits 
in a chair on the opposite side of the fire-place, grinning 
sociably at its counterpart, and rattling horribly every 
time it crosses its bony legs, or scratches the top of its 
glistening head with its gaunt, fleshless fingers. And 
thus that poor man will have to drag out a dual existence 
until death comes to both of him. It is a painful, 
expensive life, for the skeleton eats just as much as the 
flesh, and the flesh has taken to smoking ten cent cigars, 
and the skeleton can't sleep a wink unless it has a big 
hot whisky every night at bed time. And all this is the 
result of wicked, wicked carelessness. A terrible warn- 
ing to women who leave the clothes-line up after dark. 

7* 



l8o RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



INSPIRATIONS OF TRUTH. 



EVERY year, so oft as the 2 2d of February comes, 
the day sacred to the memory of the father of his 
country is faithfully celebrated by two good boys of 
Burlington, who, if their lives are only spared, will yet 
be second editions of the immortal G. W. Last year, it 
was noticed by every one about the house, they were 
unusually good. They stayed home all the morning, and 
talked about Washington, and how he broke the mule 
and girdled the sassafras tree, and how good he was, and 
what a pity it was he had no middle name. Along in 
the afternoon their mother sent them to the church, 
where there was to be a festival, with a basket filled 
high with sweet home-made bread, and cold boiled ham, 
and roast chicken, and one thing and another. They 
took hold of the basket and plodded soberly and goodily 
toward the church. As they started down Division 
Street they saw a boy coming toward them whom they 
knew. He was the son of a neighbor, the blacksmith's 
boy, with whom they had a feud of long standing; for on 
divers occasions he had caught these good brothers out, 
separately, and had rudely assaulted them, and fairly 
pounded the hair off their heads. He was a little too 
healthy for either of the boys alone, but the pair had 
sworn to make it lively for him if ever they lighted upon 
him together. So soon as they saw him they put down 
the basket and gave chase. He girded up his loins and 
fled, but the boys got themselves up and pursued after 
him and pressed him hard, and after a rattling chase of 
about two blocks, they encompassed him round about in a 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. l8l 

vacant lot, and fell upon him, and smote him insomuch 
that he begged for mercy and screamed for succor until 
he was black in the face. Then the victors, joyous 
returning from the fray, with light steps sought their long 
abandoned train. Imagine their dismay when, through 
the gathering twilight gloom, they saw somewhat less 
than one hundred and fifty thousand dogs, half buried in 
the basket, dividing and devouring the sutler stores con- 
tained therein. There was precious little left when the 
dogs were driven away, and the boys went home exceed- 
ing sorrowful, but hopeful. Their mother met them at 
the door, and took the empty basket from their hands. 

"Who did you give the basket to?" she asked. 

"Mrs. Featherstone, dear ma," replied the elder George 
Washington. 

"And what did she say ? " asked their mother, for Mrs. 
Featherstone is an authority in church festivals. 

"Oh," chorused both George Washingtons, "she said 
it was the nicest basket that had come in all the after- 
noon/' 

"And," added the younger George, feeling that he 
wasn't doing himself justice if he didn't get in an inde- 
pendent statement, " Mrs. Lamphreys said she would 
give anything in the world if she could make such white 
bread as yours — she said it was wonderful how you 
done it." 

"Now, did she say that?" cried the delighted woman; 
for at the last sociable Mrs. Lamphreys said her bread 
was like bass-wood slabs. 

"And Mr. Middlerib," cried the elder G. W., fearful 
lest his younger brother should find favor and be exalted 
over him, "said there wasn't such chickens anywhere in 
the State of Iowa outside of that basket." 

And then the younger held the age again, and the 



l82 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

older chipped one, and the younger saw him and raised 
him, and then the older came in, and the younger stayed 
right by him, and they told all manner of things and 
compliments about and from ajl manner of people who 
were at the church, until the good woman, astonished 
and delighted at her sudden popularity, determined to 
go to the sociable, although she had not intended to do 
so. She went, and she looked in vain for her cake and 
ham and chicken. She returned home at an early hour, 
and roused her young George Washingtons from the 
sweet, innocent sleep of childhood. Then she took a 
skate strap, and after a brief but pointed cross-questioning 

on the evidence already brought forward, proceeded . 

The rest is too awful. 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. 



IT must have been nearly three years ago, as nearly as 
we can remember, just about the time Monfort and 
Hill got to photographing ghosts, that a tall, pale man, 
with piercing black eyes and long hair, came to Burling- 
ton and opened a photograph gallery. He was a spirit 
photographer, and when his sitters received their pictures, 
for which they were expected to pay very roundly, lo, the 
spirit faces of dear ones who had gone before clustered 
around the. face of the party whose photograph had been 
taken from life. There were plenty of people in the 
learned city of Burlington who were as fond of believing 
in supernatural things as are the outside barbarians. So, 
credulous men and women thronged to the spirit artist's 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 183 

studio, the spirits came up to be photographed around 
their mortal friends by squads and platoons, and worldly 
dross, in the shape of a fluctuating and irredeemable 
currency, poured into the artist's coffers, and he was 
happy. Among others who went to his studio, was a 
sad-eyed young man who is a genius. He never used to 
get home till two o'clock in the morning, because he was 
down in his office, he told the folks, burning the mid- 
night oil, and committing the yearnings of a restless and 
ambitious genius to paper. He was supposed to be 
writing a book of poems, and, consequently, the fair ones 
who were privileged to enter the circle of his dreamy 
acquaintance, doted on him. When he went to have his 
photograph taken, the dearest girl in the world, the one 
who tells him what nice hands he has, and who rubs his 
head when his long hours of lonely study make it ache 
all the next day, accompanied him. He told her on the 
way down that he expected when his counterfeit pre- 
sented itself on the albumenized card, the spirit faces of 
Byron, and. Hood, and Macaulay, and Shakspeare, and 
Tom Moore, and Shelley would rise and cluster around 
him. She gasped hysterically, and, looking proudly at 
him, said she believed they would too, and wouldn't it 
be nice ? But he only sighed gloomily, as genius always 
sighs, and they entered the studio. 

While the young man was posing himself the Pro- 
fessor told him that those who were nearest and dearest 
to him in his lonely hours would gather around him and 
kiss the clustering curls on his marble brow, and that no 
earthly power could keep them out of the camera. The 
young lady reiterated her opinion in regard to the " nice- 
ness " of such an arrangement, the young man put on a 
look of genius and gazed into the camera with the air of 
a man who is wondering where he can borrow three dol- 



1 84 

lars ; the artist dived under the cloth and in due time he 
stepped to the front with the picture and exhibited it to 
the poet and the adoring girl. 

Spirits ? 

One or two of them. Right in the center was the 
young poet, gazing dreamily out into vacancy. And the 
spirits who cheered him in his lonely hours of study, and 
assisted him in the conflagration of the midnight oil, 
gathered around him, and never stirred or faded, not 
even when the poet ejaculated, " Oh lying horrors ! " nor 
yet when the young girl shrieked and fell fainting with 
her hair caught in that forked thing the artist stands 
behind the subject to hold his head steady. For on the 
right of the poet there stood a spirit with a long slim 
neck whose name appeared to be " Whisky Cocktail," 
and on the left there was a short, squatty spirit who was 
announced as just plain " Gin," and then, clustering all 
around the young poet's head, like an aureola, were 
" Straights," whatever they are, " Grasshopper Punch," 
" Log Cabin Cocktail," " Old Tamarack," " Eye Openers," 
"Appetizers," "Night Caps," "Can't Quits," "Corpse 
Revivers," " Coffin Nails," " Indian Cocktails," " Moun- 
tain Dew," " Benzine," " The New Drink," " Fly Poison," 
"What Killed Dad," "The Same," "Fast Freight," 
" Bran'an Wa'r," " Sherri'neg," " Sudden Death," "Cru- 
sade Drops," "Commissary No. 3," "Old Crow," 
"Tangleleg," "Forty Rod," "Grim Death," " Jimson 
Juice," "Chain Lightning," "Twelfth Resolution," 
"That's on Me," "Temperance Tract," "Quinine," and 
several other spirits who were too far in the back ground 
to show their cards very distinctly. 

The young man didn't take another sitting, and he has 
since spent more time trying to convince "her" that 
this spirit photography is the greatest humbug that ever 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 185 

deluded a credulous people, than he ever spent with the 
spirits who share his lonely hours of midnight toil. 



WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 



PROF. MATTHEWS, in his delightful book, "Hours 
With Men and Books," devotes a chapter, and a 
very instructive chapter too, to advising and directing 
people who are determined to write for the press what 
to write and how to say it. But even in that special 
chapter Prof. Matthews has overlooked quite a num- 
ber of important points which we, in our experience 
with occasional newspaper contributors, have come to 
look upon as absolutely essential to good correspondence. 
We have had, even in the usually infallible Hawk- 
eye, some complaint, once in a while, from occasional 
correspondents about mistakes which have appeared in 
their articles when they come out in print. We are 
aware that in many cases the fault was our own, but we 
are confident all such trouble could be remedied if cor- 
respondents would pay a little more attention to the 
preparation of their manuscript. Printers are not always 
infallible, and proof readers do sometimes make mis- 
takes, but we have prepared a few practical hints and 
instructions, and if people who write occasionally for the 
papers will only observe the following simple and practi- 
cal rules, which are much easier to observe than Prof. 
Matthews', they may be assured that their articles will 
always command the highest market price, which is sel- 
dom less than two cents a pound : 



l86 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Never write with pen or ink. It is altogether too plain, 
and doesn't hold the mind of the editor and printers 
closely enough to their work. 

If you are compelled to use ink never use that vul- 
garity known as the blotting pad. If you. drop a blot of 
ink on the paper, lick it off. The intelligent compositor 
loves nothing so dearly as to read through the smear this 
will make across twenty or thirty words. We have seen 
him hang over such a piece of copy half an hour, swear- 
ing like a pirate all the time, he felt that good. 

Don't punctuate. Editors and publishers prefer to 
punctuate all manuscript sent to them. And don't use 
capitals. Then the editor can punctuate and capitalize 
to suit himself, and your article, when you see it in print, 
will astonish even if it does not please you. 

Don't try to write too plainly. It is a sign of plebeian 
origin and public -school breeding. Poor writing is an 
indication of genius. It's about the only indication of 
genius that a great many men possess. Scrawl your 
article with your eyes shut, and make every word as 
illegible as you can. We get the same price for it from 
the rag -man as though the paper were covered with 
copper -plate sentences. 

Avoid all painstaking with proper names. All editors 
know the full name of every man, woman and child in 
the United States, and the merest hint at the name is 
sufficient. For instance, if you write a character some- 
thing like a drunken figure " 8," and then draw a wavy 
line, and then write the letter M and another wavy 
line, the editor will know at once that you mean Samuel 
Morrison, even though you may think you mean " Lem- 
uel Messenger." It is a great mistake to think that 
proper names should be written plainly. 

Always write on both sides of the paper, and when you 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 187 

have filled both sides of every page trail a line up and 
down every margin, and back to the top of the first page, 
closing your article by writing the signature just above 
the date. How editors do love to get hold of articles 
written in this style. And how they would like to get 
hold of the man who sends them. Just for ten minutes. 
Alone. In the woods, with a gun. 

Lay your paper on the ground when you write ; the 
rougher the ground the better. A dry goods box or the 
side of the house will do if the ground is too damp. 
Any thing rather than a table or desk. 

Coarse brown wrapping paper is the best for writing 
your articles on. If you can tear down an old circus 
poster and write on the pasty side of it with a pine stick, 
it will do still better. 

When your article is completed, crunch the paper in 
your pocket, and carry it two or three days before send- 
ing it in. This rubs off the superfluous pencil marks 
and makes it lighter to handle. 

If you can think of it, lose one page out of the middle 
of your article. The editor can easily supply what is 
missing, and he loves to do it. He has nothing else 
to do. 

If correspondents will observe these directions, editors, 
in most instances, will hold themselves personally 
responsible for every error that appears in .their articles, 
and will pay full claims for damages when complaint is 
made. We shall never forget the last man who com- 
plained at the Hawkey e office under this rule. We can 
never, never, although we should live a thousand years, 
forget the appalling look he turned upon us while we 
were pulling his lungs out of his ear with the nail-grab. 
Our heart seemed to turn to ice, under the influence of 
that dumb beseeching look, while we tore him to pieces. 



1 88 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

We have never torn a man to pieces since without feel- 
ing the hot tears spring to our eyes as we think of that 
man. We have been tempted, time and again, to break 
ourselves of this habit of tearing men to pieces for trivial 
causes. But we digress. We were merely saying we 
are always happy to receive complaints and correct any 
errors for which we are responsible. 



DANGERS OF BATHING. 



• 



AS the warm weather raises the waters of the creeks 
and rivers to the temperature so inviting to the 
boys of the republic, a few instructive and general sug- 
gestions relative to bathing in the streams may prove the 
means of saving some juvenile lives. Boys are pro- 
verbially rash and reckless in almost everything they do, 
and are so apt to overdo whatever they undertake, except 
sawing wood or fastening the front gate, that too much 
wholesome advice on the benefits of abstinence can never 
be amiss in their cases. And especially is such advice 
necessary in regard to bathing, for when a boy makes 
up his mind to "go swimming," he thinks of nothing 
in the world except getting into the water. And every 
year so many precious lives are endangered, and so much 
pain and misery caused by boyish carelessness and 
thoughtlessness in this respect, that it is a solemn and 
important duty of journalism to warn the boys of the 
dangers that wait upon bathing parties, and instruct them 
how to avoid them. We therefore give a few rules, culled 
from the pages of personal experience, which, if properly 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 189 

observed by the boys of America, may save them no one 
can tell how much misery and suffering. 

1. Always ask your mother if you may go down to 
the river with the boys to hunt carnelians. Mention the 
names of Sammie Johnson, and Robbie Gregg, and Ellis 
Haskell and Johnnie Chalmers, and Charlie Austin, and 
Wallie Colburn, and Dockie Worthington, all well-known 
11 good boys," who wash their faces every morning, keep 
their clothes clean, wear white collars, and don't say bad 
words, as the young gentlemen who are to comprise the 
party. A judicious and strict adherence to this rule has 
often obtained the necessary parental permission to visit 
the river shore, which would otherwise be sternly denied, 
especially if it should appear that Bill Slamup, and Tom 
Dobbins, and Jim Sikes, and Butch Tinker, and Mickey 
McCann, were the alternates who were confidently ex- 
pected to represent the first named delegates in the con- 
vention. 

. 2. Avoid going into the river in the vicinity of a lum- 
ber yard. The temptation to take pine boards from the 
lumber piles to swim on is too strong for many boys to 
resist. It is very pleasant, we know, to swim around on 
a nice broad plank, but the lumbermen do not always 
like it, and we have known a rough board, abruptly drawn 
from beneath the horizontal figure of a kicking, paddling, 
laughing boy, to fill him with remorse and slivers to an 
extent that would appear incredible were it not for the 
fact that the boy who loses his plank in this way has 
plenty of time to count his slivers as he pulls them out. 

We knew a boy, twenty years ago, who swam off a 
plank in this way, and immediately afterward sat down 
on the sandy shore, and amid the unfeeling laughter and 
mocking sympathy of his colleagues, withdrew from his 
cuticle, beginning at the chin and ending at the toes, 



19° RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

three hundred, and seventeen well -developed average 
slivers, and four of a larger variety, denominated snags. 
And sometimes we wake up in the night, from happy 
dreams of childhood's guileless days, and half believe we 
didn't get all those slivers out then. 

3. Avoid putting a bar of kitchen soap in your pocket 
before you leave home. It frequently gives the bather 
away entirely, being quickly missed from the sink, and 
readily detected about the person. And even if you get 
it safely to the river, and the first boy who " soaps him- 
self" does not lose it in twenty feet of water, the "strocky" 
appearance of your hair, on your return home, instantly 
betrays the recent and extravagant use of resin soap, 
and grave consequences are apt to follow. Besides, you 
do not really need the soap, as is attested by your well- 
known aversion to it at home. 

4. If convenient, bathe very near a railroad bridge. 
Then, when a passenger train comes thundering by, you 
can rush out of the water and dance and shriek on the 
bank. Travelers like this; and if your uncle Jasper, 
from Waterloo, or your father returning from Creston, 
should happen to be on the train and recognize you, they 
will tell you what the passengers said about it, and your 
father will be so pleased that he will assist you in a little 
physical exercise, so essential to the health after bathing. 
And then the next time you go in swimming you can 
show the boys your back — a spectacle in which they will 
take fiendish delight, which they will exhibit by imitating, 
in most expressive pantomime, the contortions, gestures, 
and outcries in which you were supposed to have indulged 
while your father was putting that back on you. 

5. If you desire to get up a crowd to go swimming, 
signify your wishes by holding up your right hand, with 
the first and second fingers erect and spread apart like a 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. I9 1 

letter V, and as many good boys as are ready, willing 
and anxious to run away and go with you, will respond by 
the same sign, and the party can easily be made up with- 
out fear of detection, in the presence of the unsuspecting 
preceptor, who is a graduate of a private school, and 
never had any fun. 

6. Should any boy be so lost to honor as to desire to 
leave the water before the rest of the crowd wish to do 
so, he may be easily induced to return to the liquid ele- 
ment by gently tossing a handful of dry sand or dust 
upon his back, as nearly between the shoulders as may 
be. If there is a- really good, unsophisticated boy in the 
crowd whose habit of wearing a white collar and carrying 
a clean handkerchief pronounces him a haughty aristo- 
crat, the bad boys, by getting dressed first and judiciously 
applying the sand to him as often as he "comes out," 
can keep him in the water until his father comes to look 
for him. Then, the next afternoon he goes down with 
you to the river, you can look at his back, and have your 
revenge. 

7. If a boy lingers in the water too long, it is some- 
times advisable, in order that he may learn to abstain 
from indulging himself to such an intemperate extent in 
the future, to tie each sleeve of his shirt in a most terrific 
hard knot, right at the elbow. When this knot is dipped 
into the water, and a boy gets at each end of the sleeve, 
braces his feet and pulls for life, it may be drawn so 
tightly that it can not be drawn out with a stump 
machine. The boy who belongs to that shirt, after many 
vain endeavors, is either compelled to cut off the sleeves, 
or, multis cum lachrymis, go home with it buttoned around 
his neck and hanging down his back like a drunken 
apron. This gives him away, bad, and the appearance 
of that weeping boy, plodding timorously and apprehen- 



192 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

sively homeward through the gloaming, and the variegated 
aspect of his back the next night, produce such a pleas- 
ant impression upon you, that for two weeks afterward, 
as your dear mother looks in at your room door, and sees 
you smiling in your sleep, she thinks the angels are 
whispering to you. 

8. The most approved method of drying the hair is 
to shake it up rapidly with a pine stick. Never comb 
your hair smoothly before going home, no matter who 
offers to loan you a pocket - comb. A slick head of hair 
excites suspicion in the family circle on sight. 

9. If, at the supper- table, the dreadful discovery is 
made by your mother or sister that your shirt is wrong 
side out, the best way to do is to own right up. Excuses 
are useless ; and no mother or father of ordinary intelli- 
gence was ever misled by the assertion, however 
solemnly made, that the shirt was turned by reason of 
the boy too suddenly climbing a fence instead of going 
through the gate. 

10. To get water out of your ears, lean your head 
over to one side, and kick out violently with one leg, 
while you pound your head smartly with the palm of 
your hand. It is an exploded fallacy that holding a 
warm stone to the ear will bring out the water. 

There are some other rules which might be added to 
the above, but they are comparatively unimportant, and 
are so generally known that you can learn them by ap- 
plying for information to the first bad boy you meet. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 193 



THE POWER OF DIGNITY. 



THE human heart, in all its expansive, limitless 
capacity for enjoyment, takes greater pleasure in 
nothing than in witnessing a portly, solemn- visaged 
man, the embodiment of natural dignity, importance 
in clothes, administer a scathing rebuke to some 
"smart" petty government official. One morning just 
such a personification of innate dignity loomed up at the 
stamp window of the post-office, and glared in gloomy 
and majestic displeasure at the busy clerk who registered 
a letter before he sprang to the window and asked the 
stately customer what he wished. The great man did 
not answer for several moments. He gazed steadily and 
impressively over the clerk's head, and then asked, in 
ponderous tones: 

"Is there any one hear-r-r-e who attends to business?" 

The embarrassed clerk blushed, faltered for a moment, 
then, recovering himself, said, with characteristic and 
national cheerfulness, becoming an official of the Re- 
public : 

"I will see, sir." 

And he disappeared. He went into the other depart- 
ments, tortured a carrier with an original conundrum, 
and heard a good story in the mailing room, and came 
back. 

"Yes, sir," he said to the great one, "there are, in 
addition to myself, three clerks in the letter department, 
one in the mailing room, four carriers, three route agents, 
the mail driver and a janitor." 



194 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Ah-h-h ! I am glad there are so many. I may in 
all that number find one who is at his post/' 

And then he looked as impressive as a special agent, 
and was silent for three minutes, while the humbled 
clerk awaited his orders, and impatient men behind him 
fidgeted and grumbled. Finally, the great man said 
with deep solemnity : 

"I wish one three-cent stamp." 

The clerk tore off the stamp and held it, waiting for 
the consideration. The great man made a somewhat 
longer pause than usual; he felt in his various vest 
pockets; he gradually lost his look of impressive rebuke; 
his chest caved in, and he assumed the aspect of an 
ordinary frail mortal, and he said: 

"Ah — the fact is — I'm sure — ah — in short, I find 
that I have carelessly left my purse at home — can you 
kindly—" 

The clerk, with the faintest suggestion of triumph in 
his eye, brusquely waved the great man aside with — 

"Sorry for you, sir; but the clerk who sells stamps on 
credit is not in. What does the next man want? " 

And the great man, as he backed through the smiling 
crowd who stood around with money in their hands, felt 
somehow that his rebuke had been thrown away, and 
feared that if the case went to the jury without argument 
it would very probably bring in a verdict for the Govern- 
ment. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 195 



A CANDID CONFESSION. 



THERE used to live down on Washington Street, a 
good man, who endeavored to train up his children 
in the way they should go, and as his flock was numerous 
he had anything but a sinecure in this training business. 
Only last Summer the elder of these male olive branches, 
who had lived about fourteen wicked years, enticed his 
younger brother, who had only had ten years' experience 
in boyish deviltry, to go out on the river in a boat, a 
species of pastime which their father had many a time 
forbidden, and had even gone so far as to enforce his veto 
with a skate strap. But the boys went this time, trust- 
ing to lack to conceal their depravity from the knowledge 
of their pa, and in due time they returned, and walked 
around the house, the two most innocent looking boys in 
Burlington. They separated for a few moments, and at 
the expiration of that time the elder was suddenly con- 
fronted by his father who requested a private interview 
in the usual place, and the pair adjourned to the wood 
shed, where, after a brief, but highly spirited performance, 
in which the boy appeared most successfully as " heavy 
villain " and his father took his favorite role of " first old 
man," the curtain went down and the boy, considerably 
mystified, sought his younger brother. 

" John," he said, " who do you suppose told dad ? 
Have you been licked ? " 

John's face will not look more peaceful and resigned 
when it is in his coffin than it did as he replied, 

" No, have you ? " 

3 



I9 6 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Have I ? Come down to the cow yard and look at my 
back." 

John declined, but said : 

"Well, Bill, I'll tell you how father found us out. I 
am tired of acting this way, and I ain't going to run 
away and come home and lie about it any more. I'm 
going to do better after this, and so when I saw father I 
couldn't help it, and went right to him and confessed." 

Bill was touched at this manly action on the part of 
his younger brother. It found a tender place in the bad 
boy's heart, and he was visibly affected by it. But he 
asked : 

" How did it happen the old man didn't lick you ? " 

"Well," said the penitent young reformer, "you see I 
didn't confess on myself, I only confessed on you ; that 
was the way of it." 

A strange, cold light glittered in Bill's eye. 

" Only confessed on me ? " he said. " Well, that's all 
right, but come down behind the cow shed and look at 
my back." 

And when they got there do you suppose John saw the 
first mite of Bill's back? Ah no, dear children, he saw 
nothing bigger than Bill's fists, and before he got out of 
that locality he was the worst pounded John that ever 
confessed on anybody. Thus it is that our coming 
reformers are made and trained. 




BURLINGTON NOVELETTE. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 1 99 



A BURLINGTON NOVELETTE. 



CHAPTER I. 

MARGUERITTE!" 
"Bertrande Hautville Montaigne du Biffing- 
ton ! " 

And the soughing of the September wind swept 
through the tremulous leaves like the whisper of memo- 
ries, ghosts of the far away had been. Each star that 
lit the azure dome with glittering ray— er, ah — er — er — 
with glittering ray. Ray. 
It looked like rain. 

CHAPTER II. 

Margueritte Hortense Isana l'Erena del Imperatricia 
du Calincourt Johnson was an orphan. 

Her father was dead. 

And, a- so, by the way, her mother. 

Her great grand parents were not living. Alas, no. 
The cold clods rattled on the coffins of those estimable 
people when Margueritte was young. She was not 
acquainted with the fact until the good people had been 
dead some seventy-five years. 

Then kind friends, whose hearts were torn and rifted 
with sympathy, broke the news gently to her. 

She sat like one stunned. Over her marble face there 
passed no trace of the emotion which raged like a high 
fed cyclone in her soul. She said : 

" Did they leave me anything ? " 



200 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

And they told her, " Not a stiver, dear, not a lone 
nickel ; not a street car check ; not a solitary red, red 
cent. Only an old photograph album with the covers 
torn off and the pictures lost. You are badly left." 

And then the fountains of the deep were broken up 
and she wailed in the bitterness of her agony. 

" Why, oh, why did they die ? Why did they die ? 
Why did they die and leave me, — leave me — leave me 
nothing ? " 

A deep manly voice, resonant as a vesper bell when it 
is peeling for the fray, answered from the next room. 

" I give it up." 

Let us draw a veil over the dreadful scene. 

CHAPTER III. 

Bertrande Hautville Montaigne du Biffington was not 
an orphan. 

He was an Ancient and Excepted Odd Fellow. 

He was of a noble and numerous parentage. He had 
one mother, and she was a Chicago printcess. She used 
to hold brevier cases on The Daily Tomahawk. She had 
ten divorces, neatly framed, hanging up in her parlor, 
and Bertrande, whose own original father had died of an 
hereditary attack of arsenic in the soup while his divorce 
suit was pending, was successively flogged by an illus- 
trious line of paternal incumbents, and acknowledged the 
sway of one father, full rank, and ten fathers by brevet. 
He loved the lonely orphan, who had no parents what- 
ever, from a sense of natural duty and justice, to kind of 
even the thing up and strike an equitable average. 

CHAPTER IV. 

There is only one place where nature does not abhor 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 201 

a vacuum. That is under a Congressman's hat. 

chapter v. 

Night had come. It got in on the evening train, and 
was late, as usual. The drowsy bat was on the wing ; or 
rather, the wing was on the drowsy bat. Both wings, in 
fact, were on the d. b. Down in the mossy glade, where 
deepening shadows mock the starlight's gleam, she 
waits. Her Italian marble brow is clouded with a 
weight of sorrow. Her finely-chiseled chin is still ; the 
plastic chewing-gum, pasted on the trunk of a rugged 
oak, cools and hardens in the evening air. The firm 
tread of a manly No. 9 comes crashing through the wood- 
land. 

'Tis he. 

"Bertrande!" 

" Margueritte ! " 

They said no more. They could not. They had for- 
gotten the rest of each other's names. They sat in the 
deeping shadows of the gloaming, holding each other's 
hands, and trying to think of something nice to say. 

Suddenly his delicate nostrils quivered and trembled 
with a startled light. 

" Margueritte ! " he exclaimed, " we must fly ! I hear 
the sound of native applejack upon the evening air! 
M'rT! m'ff ! " 

" Oh, hevings ! " she cried, " it is, it is me long lost 
fathyer ! " 

" Then," he exclaimed, drawing a United States regu- 
lation cavalry saber from his bosom, " I am lost! *' 

" Oh, no, not lost ; " she said in earnest tones, " go 
straight ahead till you come to the Hawkeye office, then 
turn up Market Street two blocks and follow the street 
car track south until you smell beer. Then you will 



202 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

know where you are. Fe-ly! Fe-ly! Me fathyer 
comes." 

" Methought," he said, pausing in his flight, and 
speaking sternly, " Methought thou haddedest not a 
father/' 

" I haive, I naive," she shrieked, " and it is he ! " 

And as she spake a fatherly looking man parted the 
bushes and stood by her side. He was clad in a dark 
blue cut-away coat, with a button-hole bouquet, white 
vest, lilac kids, lavender pants, a pink neck-tie, waxed 
mustache, and a high hat. His boots were four and a 
half; his snowy handkerchief was perfumed with jockey 
club, and his breath with whisky sour. He was twenty- 
one years of old. 

Bertrande regarded him sadly, and said to her he 
loved : 

" It seems to me your father is rather juvenile." 

" Dear Bertrande/' she said, laying her head upon her 
father's shoulder, " he married awful young." 

"Ah," said Bertrande, bitterly, " I thought may be you 
had adopted him." 

And turning on his heel he was gone. 
******* 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 203 



A REMINISCENCE OF EXHIBITION DAY. 



"\T 7ELL, no," the boy said, "the thing didn't go 

V V off exactly as I expected. You see, I was the 
sixth boy in the class, that was next to the head when 
the class formed left in front, and 1 was pretty near the 
first boy called on to declaim. I had got a mighty good 
ready and had a bully piece too. Ah, it was a rip staver." 

And the boy sighed as he paused to lift a segment out 
of a green apple, and placed it where it would do the 
most good, for a cholera doctor. We asked what piece 
it was. 

" Spartacus to the Gladiators," he said. " Just an old 
he raker of a piece. I got it all by heart, and used to 
go clear out to the Cascade to rehearse and hook straw- 
berries. Old Fitch" — Mr. Fitch was the boy's preceptor, 
one of the finest educators in the state — " he taught me 
all the gestures and inflections and flub drubs, and said 
I was just layin' over the biggest toad in the puddle " 

" Excelling all your competitors, probably Mr. Fitch 
said," we suggested. 

" Yes," the boy replied, " he's a toney old cyclopedia 
on the patter, is old Fitchy. But him and me was both 
dead sure I was goin' to skin the rag off the bush " 

" Win all the honors," we gently corrected. 

" Yes," he said, " and the way it went off was bad. 
You see, I didn't feel easy in my Sunday clothes on a 
week day to begin with. And my collar was too tight 
and my necktie was too blue, and I was in a hurry to get 
off early, so I only blacked the toes of my boots, and left 






204 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

the heels as red as a concert ticket. And the crowd 
there was in the school -house. Jammed. Everybody 
in their good clothes and every body looking solemn as 
Monday morning. When my name was called something 
came up in my throat as big as a foot -ball. I couldn't 
swallow it and I couldn't spit it out. And when I got 
up on the platform — oh, Godfrey's cordial! did you 
ever see a million heads without any bodies ? " 

We felt ashamed of our limited experience while we 
confessed that we could not recall having witnessed such 
a phenomenon. 

" I never did till then," the boy went on, " but they 
were there, for a fact, and I began to remember when 
these heads danced round and round the room that I had 
been forgetting my piece in the last five minutes just as 
fast as I ever forgot to fix the kindling wood at night. 
But I commenced. I got along with '•It had been a 
day of triumph in Capua ' and t Lentulus returning 
with victorious eagles ' and all that well enough, but 
when I got on into the heavy business, I was left, sure. 
If Spartacus had talked to the gladiators as I did, they 
would have thought he was drunk and hustled him off to 
bed. It was awful. I stumbled along until I came to 
' Ye stand here now like giants as ye are. The strength 
of brass is in your rugged sinews, but to - morrow some 
Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curling 
locks, will with his dainty fingers pat your red brawn 
and bet his sesterces upon your blood ? " 

" That was excellent, capital," we said, applauding, for 
the boy had growled off the last sentence like a first 
heavy villain. 

"Oh yes, is it though?" he said, with some asperity. 
"Well, that's the way I was going to say it that Friday, 
but what I did say was, 'The strength of brass is in 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 205 

your rugged sinews, but to-morrow afternoon (you see I 
got to thinking of a base bail match) some Doman Aronis 
breathing sweet perfumery from his curly socks, will pat 
your bed rawn and bet his sister sees your blood/ " 

"Did they laugh?" we asked. 

" Oh no ! " he replied, with an inflection that type 
won't take. "Oh, no; they never smiled again; they 
didn't. It was when I got down a little that they felt 
bad. When he says, ' If ye are beasts, then stand here 
waiting like fat oxen for the butcher's knife.' I told 
them, ' If ye be cat fattle, then wait here standing like a 
butcher for the carving knife.' And I got worse and 
worse until it came to this, ' Oh, Rome, Rome, thou hast 
been a tender mother to me. Thou hast taught the 
poor timid shepherd boy, who never knew a harsher tone 
than a flute note, to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the 
fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing 
girl. Thou hast taught him to drive the sword through 
rugged links of mail and brass and warm it in the mar- 
row of his foe ! " 

"Bravo ! " we shouted. 

"Cheese it," he said, sententiously; " I didn't say it 
just that way. I said, * Oh Rome, thou has ten a binder 
mother to me. Thou hast taught the poor boy who 
never knew a sheep note to glare into the laughing ear 
of a fierce Numidian eyeball even as a lyin' boy at a 
girl. Thou hast taught him to mail his ragged brass 
through swords of link, and marry it in the warmer of 
his foe." 

"And then?" we asked. 

" I cried," he said, " and went down Everybody was 
cryin\ They all had their faces in their handkerchiefs 
or behind fans, and were shaking so it nearly jarred the 
school house*" 

8* 



206 RISE AND PALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" You should practice elocution during vacation," we 
suggested, " and you will not fail again." 

He bolted the rest of the green apple, threw his bare 
feet up in the air, and walked around on his hands in 
little circles. " Don't have no speakin' in vacation," he 
said. 

And we knew that, boy-like, he was going to let the 
day and the morrow take care each of its own evils, 
and we wondered as we came away how many fathers 
would recognize their own boys in the hero of this 
sketch, and if dear old Fitch, the oldest boy, with the 
clearest head and the tenderest heart we ever knew, 
would remember him. 



MR. OLENDORF'S COMPLAINT. 



YOUNG Mr. Olendorf used to board at a nice board- 
ing house out on North Hill, a little this side of the 
North Pole. It was a good way out; but Mr. Olendorf 
always was fond of pure air and pedestrian exercise, and 
as his business hours were easy, he preferred the com- 
forts of a home in the suburbs to the excitement and 
clamor of a down-town hotel. A mild-looking, meek- 
faced, soft- voiced young man was Mr. Olendorf, as ever 
you could wish to see. He rarely complained about 
anything, and he never spoke harshly of any one. He 
would sit on his trunk, when the family had carried his 
chair down to the parlor for the convenience of invited 
guests; and he would patiently sew on his shirt-buttons 
with a darning-needle and carpet thread, rather than 




OLENDORF'S COMPLAINT. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 209 

intimate to his washer-lady that it wasn't just the thing 
to run fine shirts through a corn-sheller to wash them. 
Many a time he crawled into a bed that looked like the 
crater of an extinct volcano, rather than report the hired 
girl for neglecting to make it up. And six times a week 
he cleaned his grimy lamp-chimney with his fingers, as 
far as they would reach, because, he said, in the fullness 
of his charitable soul, the girl had so much to do she 
hadn't got round to it. And the seventh night in the 
week, the lamp being empty and dry as a flat bottle 
on a hunting expedition, he would undress by the dim 
religious light of a match. He used to wash with a piece 
of soap four inches long and two inches thick, as brown 
as varnish, and so hard it chipped the edges of the wash- 
stand when it was carelessly dropped; and often and 
often, when his eyes were full of soap, and he reached 
out his imploring hands, groping for the short, thin towel 
that was seldom there, he had to feel his way to the bed, 
abrading his shins against things that he couldn't see and 
didn't know the names of, and dry his face and hair on the 
pillow-slips. But he never murmured. He used to find 
bright streaks of red by the dozen in his pomade, and go 
down to the breakfast table with his own coal-black 
locks as dry as good advice, and marvel at the exceeding 
glossiness and slickness of the hired girl's bright auburn 
cranium. But he said never a word. And the drouth 
used to strike his perfumery bottles once in a while, and 
leave them as empty as a lecturer's head ; and he would 
wind his modest nasal horn in a handkerchief that 
smelled like a washtub, and when his landlady's daugh- 
ters sailed scornfully past him, perfumed for all the world 
like the ghosts of his toilet bottles up stairs, he never 
looked suspicious, but only smiled apologetically, as 
though it was wrong in him to leave temptation in their 



2tO RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

way. And once, when he had an attack of cholera 
morbus, and sent out for a quart of brandy, and took a 
tablespoonful of it, and came back at night to find the 
bottle very empty, and the landlady's husband very full, 
and lying in Mr. Olendorf 's bed with his boots on, young 
Mr. Olendorf only agreed with the landlady that it was 
very singular, and that the old man must be ill. So you 
see Mr. Olendorf was inclined to be rather peaceable and 
meek, and when he did complain there must be some 
reason for it. 

One evening Mrs. McKerrel, his landlady, approached 
the young man for the purpose of securing the weekly 
dole which he paid for the comforts of a home, and 
bracing himself up by a desperate effort, Mr. Olendorf, 
for the first time in his life, complained. 

" It's the hash, Mrs. McKerrel," he said plaintively. 
" It's too monotonous. It's good hash. I can't say that 
it isn't good. It is more nutritious than chopped straw, 
and a prize candy package doesn't equal it for variety. 
But I want change. I like hash for breakfast. But 
when you give us baked hash for dinner, and put boned 
hash on for supper, and give us plain hash again for 
breakfast, and serve stuffed hash again for dinner, it isn't 
a square deal. I believe you impose on us. I never 
heard of ' stuffed hash ' before I came here, and the 
only difference between it and the common kind is that 
it is thinner. The last ' stuffed hash ' you gave us you 
made us eat with steel forks, and it was as thin as soup, 
and how is a strong man going to make out a dinner 
when he has only twenty-five minutes in which to eat 
soup with a three-tined fork? And I don't think you do 
the fair thing by us on what you call 'boned hash.' It's 
hardly right, Mrs. McKerrel, to make a hash of sardines 
and herrings and then call it 'boned.' It's just like 



And other hawk - eyetems. 211 

eating a shoe brush. Now there ought to be, once in a 
while, a change. Not too often, you know ; I don't 
expect you to keep a French restaurant for seven dollars 
a week, but just often enough to keep the bill of fare 
from growing tiresome. Say once every seven years. 
For instance, you may have ' boned hash ' to-morrow 
for dinner, which, it being Sunday, you will. Well, then, 
you might have 'boned hash* every day until 1882, and 
then give us a roast, or a car-spring chicken. And so 
with 'stuffed hash,' and ' hash a la mode,' and 'hash a 
la Mayonnais,' ' Lady Washington hash,' 'hash on toast,' 
' spring hash, with mint sauce,' and ' hash a la mortar,' 
and the other hashes on your bill of fare. By serving 
them up once every seven years, you have enough kinds 
to run clear into a Centennial." 

The landlady, looking aghast, made an effort to speak, 
but young Mr. Olendorf motioned her to silence. 

"And if you would speak to Mrs. Muldoon, dear Mrs. 
McKerrel," he went on, " and tell her that, while I am 
not proud, I do not consider the hickory shirts which the 
estimable Mr. Muldoon wears while he is developing the 
railroad resources of the United States exactly the 
things to wear to church ; and even if I had no other 
scruples against attending public worship in a section 
hand's shirt, torn all the way across the shoulders and 
fastened at the neck and cuffs with horn buttons, Mr. 
Muldoon 's are five sizes too large for me, and I would 
rather she would send me my own. And if you can 
bribe her to put the starch in my collars instead of my 
handkerchiefs, I feel that it will improve the appearance 
of my neck, and spare the feelings of a lacerated and 
tender nose. No man, Mrs. McKerrel, can wipe his 
nose on a sheet of tin and do the matter justice." 

Mrs. McKerrel placed her hands on her hips and stood 



212 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

up, but Mr. Olendorf begged her to be patient just a 
moment, while he went on : 

" And do you think, if I made a chalk mark on them, 
that your domestic could learn the difference between 
my hair brush and my shoe brush ? And if I made her 
a little present, might she not be induced to look up 
something else to black the stoves with instead of my 
shoe brush? It is dreadfully mortifying, Mrs. McKerrel, 
to black your shoes after night and get clear in church 
the next morning before discovering that your feet are 
glistening in all the glory of 'Plumbago's New Silver 
Gray Luster,' and everybody is laughing at you. And 
then, Mrs. McKerrel, I don't know how my things get so 
full of snuff. I never use snuff, and I don't want to 
complain, but " 

Here the exasperated matron could restrain herself no 
longer. Hastily thrusting her snuff-box back in her pocket, 
she bade Mr. Olendorf pack. What he wanted, she said, 
was a Fifth Avenue hotel for seven dollars a week, and 
he couldn't have it in her house. He was too particular 
for such a plain woman as her ; if he didn't like the ways 
of plain people, he would have to go where they were 
nicer. He was too stuck up and fussy to live in her 
house. Boarders she had kept, of the very best people 
in the highest classes in society, and this was the first 
time she had ever heard a word of complaint in her house. 

And that is the way Mr. Olendorf happened to call 
around at the Gorham and ask Andrews for a nice room, 
a long ways up. And Andrews gave him a key and told 
him to climb till he knew he was lost, and then crawl 
into the first bed he saw. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 213 



RURAL FELICITY. 



MR. PHILETUS R. THROOP is a well known in- 
surance agent of Burlington. He is a perfect 
steam engine to work, and every Summer, when he feels 
about worn out by his labors, he goes out to the farm of 
his Uncle George and rests a couple of weeks. He 
went out last Summer, as usual, but he only remained a 
couple of days, and on his return he was heard to say 
that he would never, never, never, go into the country 
again if he died for a breath of fresh air. The causes 
which led to this determination were as follows : 

You see, he got a late start on his last trip out into the 
country, so that when he reached his Uncle George's 
farm it was about nine o'clock in the evening, and the 
family, after the good old-fashioned custom, had gone to 
bed; not a light was visible about the house. Mr. 
Throop got out of the wagon in which a neighboring 
farmer had brought him, before they reached the house, 
so that the noisy wheels would not apprise any waking 
member of the fact that a visitor had come. Then he 
climbed over the fence and skipped briskly across lots to 
reach the house, and give Uncle George and the family 
a good surprise. Mr. Throop was not so familiar with 
the farm as he ought to have been to attempt such a 
nocturnal expedition. He had not gone twenty steps 
before he stepped into a great ditch, and had time to say 
all he could remember of the child's prayer, " Now I lay 
me/' before he reached the bottom, and then had plenty 
of time to compose and repeat a much more appropriate 



2t4 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

and longer one before he crawled out again. After that 
he went more slowly, picking his steps with the greatest 
care, and straining his eyes as he peered into the dark- 
ness to distinguish noxious objects. But it was very 
dark, and of course appearances were unusually deceit- 
ful. He would walk around a patch of young clover or 
luxuriant turf, his heart standing still the while with the 
terror of having so narrowly escaped walking into a 
great well, and the next minute he would, after peering 
ahead of him until his eyes ached and sparks of fire 
danced before them, walk with the greatest confidence 
and composure into a pile of last year's peabrush seven 
feet high, knocking off his hat, scratching his face and 
tearing his clothes. And then such a time as he would 
have hunting for his hat, and all the imaginable and un- 
imaginable things that he would pick up in mistake for 
that useful article of apparel, can be far better imagined 
than described. And once he ran into a fence and 
nearly put his eye out on the end of a great stake that 
was standing out like the point of a chevaux de /rise. 
And just before he got to the barn -yard he was amazed 
to discern a creek flowing between him and the fence, 
and after vainly hunting in the dark for a bridge, he 
pulled off his boots and trousers, and, holding the bundle 
of clothes high in his arms, waded across a stubblefield ! 
so dry, every foot of it, that he might have lighted a 
match on it anywhere. He thought every tooth he had 
would chatter out of his head before he could get into 
his clothes again. Then he got into the barn - yard. He 
knew it was the barn -yard after he got into it, because 
in less than a minute after he had climbed the fence, he 
fell over a slumbering cow, and before he could get up, 
the frightened animal rose to her feet and bucked Mr. 
Throop over her head. Then he heard a cow get up 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 215 

just before him, and another just behind him, and 
two or three to the right and left, and when a cow 
with a bell that could be heard two miles got up 
and began galloping around the yard stirring up the 
rest of the cows, Mr. Throop would have willingly 
given up the best risk he had ever taken for a lantern. 
It wasn't safe to stand still, so he took his hat in his 
hand and went along, swooping it around him in great 
circles, shouting "Swoosh! Hi! Hooey! Scat! Whish! 
Whoosh! Ste-boy ! " as he went along. He only hit one 
cow with his hat, however, and the animal thus rudely 
assailed reached out and kicked him in the groin and 
doubled him up, and with a farewell flourish hit him on 
the side of the face with the end of a tail so full of 
cockle burs that it weighed twenty -seven pounds and 
knocked him so flat he thought he never would want to 
get up again. Then he saw what he supposed was the 
house, looming up black and quiet before him, and he 
thought his troubles were over. They had just begun. 

The next minute he stepped under an open shed where 
the agricultural implements had been stored during the 
Winter. The first intimation he had of this was by 
falling over a plow. He scraped both shins, from the 
instep to the knee, across the edge of the share, and one 
of the handles caught him under the chin and jabbed his 
head up and back so suddenly that he heard his neck 
crack, and the other hunched him in the floating ribs and 
knocked enough breath out of him to start a tornado, in 
a small way but on a safe basis. He thought he never 
would get away from that plow, for he no sooner got one 
leg out of one entanglement of draught -irons, coulter, 
share and handles, than he got the other one snarled up 
in a still more hopeless maze of mould -board, clevis, 
sole -plate and beam, besides several other parts that he 



2l6 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

didn't know the names of. And when at last he van- 
quished the plow he lost himself in a cultivator, and 
wore himself out trying to crawl through the gang of 
coulters. When he got clear of that he fell in with a 
reaper and mower, and after prodding his instep into 
indescribable agony by thrusting it against the sickle 
guards as he fell, he caught hold of the reel, which, 
of course, immediately whirled with his weight. But it 
chanced that quite a large colony of barn -yard fowls had 
used the reel as their roosting place during the Winter, 
and as it whirled round the amazed and bewildered Mr. 
Throop rained down upon himself a terrific tempest of 
hens and roosters, Brahmas, light Cochins, ungainly 
Shanghais, and a variety of other breeds in such a tumult 
of squawkings and cacklings, and flappings of wings, and 
vague but vigorous clawings of feet, that he didn't care 
whether he got out alive or not, and, indeed, before he 
got through with the reel he knocked himself down with 
its vindictive slats seven times. Then he got away from 
that and impaled himself on a horse rake, and fell over 
the handle of a fanning mill, and nearly killed himself in 
the horse power of a thrashing machine, and finally got 
into the house yard, felt his way to the house, and fell 
exhausted and speechless against the front door with a 
diamond - shaped harrow hanging around his neck. And 
Uncle George, awakened by the thump at the door, 
opened an up - stairs window and demanded who was 
there, and receiving no answer shot twice at the recum- 
bent form of Mr. Throop with his revolver. And when 
they came down with lights and opened the door, they 
were as greatly surprised as Mr. Throop could have 
wished. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 21 7 



THE GARDEN OF THE GODS. 



THE people around Barnes Street well remember 
when Mr. Middlerib planted the " garden of the 
gods.'' He bought cartloads of rich earth for it, and 
loaded it with patent fertilizers, and ground and stirred 
and raked it until the soil was fine as corn meal. The 
seeds were received by express, and there wasn't a 
package that didn't have a full college course of Latin 
printed on the back, and Mr. Middlerib grew bald trying 
to pronounce the fearful and wonderful names of the 
seed, that were to make the garden of the gods the won- 
der of South Hill. When these germs of magnificent 
flora were planted the neighbors hung over the fence in 
silent admiration and listened to Mr. Middlerib 's botanical 
lectures, delivered over every package that was opened. 
Where the abolutus haciedendus microbulus was imbedded, 
he erected a large trestle immediately, for that impetuous 
climber to ascend and ramble over. And where he im- 
planted the diocantanean psyttachineliensis psoddium, he 
reared a tall, straight stick for that towering mass of 
blossom and foliage to shape itself against. He refused 
the most penetrating hints for a few seeds of the bianthus 
geridian psottoliensis giasticus, floridens bilthus> and the care 
and great gravity with which he earthed the germs of the 
bibulus Burlingtoniensis giganteus brought tears to the eyes 
of the women. And when the seeds were all planted, 
how zealously Mr. Middlerib watched and wrought and 
fought for their protection. He would get up in the 
night to chase the neighbors' cows around the house two 



2l8 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

or three times, and across the garden of the gods four or 
five times, and out of the front gate once, and return to 
his virtuous couch with profanity in his heart and mud 
on his feet, and one slipper down by the cistern and the 
other in the verbena bed. 

All the cut-worms in the State of Iowa appeared to be 
attending a mass convention in the garden of the gods. 
When the tinner came to fix the spout, he stuck the lad- 
der by which he ascended to the roof in that sacred 
ground, and the carpenter who patched the cornice set 
one of his trestles in the same place. Every tramp who 
came to beg, selected that one favored locality as the 
only spot in the world where he might assume the usual 
humble and respectful position, and rehearse the stereo- 
typed application for provender. Mr. Middlerib nearly 
wore out his voice shouting at people and cows, and 
railing at cut-worms, and one Sunday morning he fell 
asleep in church, and Mrs. M. prodded him with her 
parasol just as the minister said, in impressive accents, 
"And here we are treading on sacred ground." " Git off 
of it ! " yelled Mr. Middlerib, dreaming of the grocer's 
boy standing on the g. o. g., and using his oft-repeated 
phrase, " Scatter, or I'll bury ye in it ! " And it raised 
such a church scandal that Mr. Middlerib was obliged 
to double his subscription to keep in good fellowship. 

But after manifold troubles, the garden came along 
beautifully, only the plants acted a little queer. The 
climber refused to climb, save in a horizontal position, 
but after its own way ; and in all general directions on a 
horizontal plane it manifested a disposition to crowd all 
over that part of South Hill. The diocantanean psyttachi- 
neliensis psoddium scorned the straight stick by which it 
was expected to brace itself, and grew out in crooked 
branches like a garden oak. But the tender care it re- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



219 



ceived, and the rich earth in which it was planted, showed 
what wonders cultivation will do, and when, at last, Mr. 
Middlerib, after long and manfully holding out against 
the declarations of the envious neighbors and the hints 
of his wife and daughter, was obliged to sit down on the 
porch, one lovely Summer evening, and admit that he 
had wasted enough breath to make a tornado, and filled 
the air with vociferous and murderous threats and 
vituperations, and quarreled with three - quarters of his 
acquaintances, all for the sake of raising a jimson weed, 
it was nevertheless a jimson weed nine feet high, with 
blossoms as big as inflated sun -flowers. So he let the 
jimson weed stand, and argued with every one who came 
to the house that, with sufficient care and proper cultiva- 
tion, it could be developed into a fruit - bearing tree. As 
for the abolutos haciedendus microbulos, as soon as he was 
morally and botanically certain that it was just chick- 
weed, Mr. Middlerib one night secretly pulled it up and 
threw it away, and ever afterward professed to be heart- 
broken because some rascally, envious florist had come 
up from Keokuk and stolen the choicest climber in the 
Mississippi Valley. The bianthus geridian psoltoliensis 
giasticus ', floridens bilthus never showed itself until toward 
the latter part of June. Then it thrust up a delicate, 
fragile little sprout, drank in a little of the glad free air 
and pure sunlight, heard itself called by its full name, 
and drooped under the burden and died. The bibulus 
Burlingtoniensis giganteus came up and did well. It did 
not flower very abundantly, but it developed very marked 
qualities. The chickens came up and pecked at it, and 
then laid them down under the currant bushes and closed 
their eyes upon this world of sorrow and mysterious 
plants. The pigs got into the yard and rooted a little 
of it up, and their sudden demise gave rise to the rumor 



220 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

of the hog cholera, and the air of the hill was vocal for 
the next five days with the protests of healthy porkers 
against the popular modes of treating the hog cholera, 
such as boring holes along the spine with a red hot iron 
and splitting the ears and tail and rubbing in salt and 
cayenne pepper. And after Master Middlerib fooled 
with it and got some of it on his face, which immediately 
swelled up so that nothing was visible to his eyes, and 
his eyes were visible to nobody, for nearly a week, the 
wonderful plant was pulled up with the kitchen tongs and 
thrown into the alley, where the geese of South Hill 
found it, ate it, grew fat on it, and came around and asked 
for more. Nothing that grows under the heavens can 
kill a South Hill goose. 

There were other plants in the garden of the gods that 
came up and grew to maturity and brought forth blossoms 
each after his kind, but as they turned out to be various 
species of rag -weed and dog -fennel, they were not con- 
sidered worthy of mention by Mr. Middlerib. But he is 
disheartened with scientific gardening, and he only lives 
now for one object : to ascertain whether these Latin 
names are really the scientific names of those plants 
which they set forth, or he was swindled by the travel- 
ing seed agent. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



A TRYING SITUATION. 



THERE was a time when Mr. Bilderback was almost 
persuaded to cut off his pew rent, renounce his 
religious convictions, and become an atheist or a pagan, 
he wasn't very particular which. He was for many- 
weeks in great distress of mind, and professed the 
greatest hatred of all churches, on general principles. 
This state of affairs, which fortunately was not perma- 
nent, was brought about by a very annoying, though per- 
fectly innocent occurrence. One beautiful but rather 
warm Sunday morning he was dozing comfortably in his 
pew, in the church of which he is one of the main 
sleepers, when he became aware of an apparition gliding 
solemnly down the aisle with a collection basket in its 
hand. Mr. Bilderback braced up into an erect posture, 
cleared his throat in a ponderous tone of Roman firm- 
ness, as one who should say, "Who's been asleep?" 
And as the basket was extended toward him, he felt in 
his trousers pocket for his wallet. It wasn't there, and 
as he withdrew his hand, and felt in the other pocket, he 
felt that the eyes of the congregation were upon him, 
and that was all he felt, for he certainly didn't feel any 
pocket-book. He nodded the basket man to wait a sec- 
ond, and leaned over to the left while he felt in the right 
inside pocket of his coat, from which in his growing 
nervousness he drew half a dozen chestnuts which rolled 
over the floor with a rattle that sounded in his hot ears 
like the thunders of the Apocalypse, and made him 
warmer and more nervous than ever. Then he leaned 



22 2 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

over the end of the pew and felt in the other inside 
coat pocket and drew out a bundle of letters, a lot 
of postal cards, a circus ticket, a photograph of an 
actress, a funny story printed on a card, a pocket 
comb and a long string, and his face grew so warm his 
breath felt like a hot air blast. Then he squared his 
elbows and went for his vest pockets, and strewed the 
pew cushion with quill toothpicks, newspaper scraps, 
street car checks, a shoe buttoner, some lead pencil stubs, 
and crumbling indications of chewing tobacco, a bit of 
sealing wax, a piece of licorice root about an inch long, 
and three or four matches. Then he leaned forward and, 
stung to madness by the smiles which were breaking out 
all around that church worse than the measles in a 
primary school room, dived into his coat tail pockets, and 
drew forth a red silk handkerchief, two apples, a spec- 
tacle case, a pair of dog skin gloves, an overcoat button, 
and a fine assortment of bits of dried orange peel and 
lint. Then he stood up, devoutly praying that an earth- 
quake might come along and swallow up either him or 
the rest of the congregation, he didn't much care which, 
and went down into his hip pockets, from which he 
evolved a revolver, a corkscrew, a cigar case, a piece of 
string, a memorandum book, and a pocket knife. By 
this time Mr. Bilderback' s face was scarlet clear down to 
his waist, and he was so nervous and worked up that he 
nearly shook his clothes off, while the man with the bas- 
ket couldn't have moved away, if he had died for staying. 
And when Mr. Bilderback, in forlorn despair, once more 
rammed his hand into the trousers pocket where he 
began the search, the congregation held its breath, and 
when Mr. Bilderback drew forth the very pocket-book 
which he had missed in his first careless search, and had 
since all but stripped to find, there was a sigh of relief 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 223 

went up from every devout heart in that house. But 
Mr. Bilderback only dropped into his seat with an abrupt- 
ness that made the windows rattle, and registered a men- 
tal vow that he wasn't going to come out to church again 
to be made a fool of by a man with a long handled darn- 
ing basket. 



MR. BILDERBACK LOSES HIS HAT. 



NO," Mr. Bilderback said, "it wasn't." He put it 
there last night, the last thing before he went 
to bed, he remembered most distinctly. It wasn't there 
now, and he didn't know who had any business to move 
it. Somebody had done it, and he hoped to gracious 
that it would be the last time. Somebody was always 
meddling with his things. 

Mrs. Bilderback, coming down stairs with a weary air, 
asked if he had looked in the closets ? 

" Closets ? " Mr. Bilderback snarled, " Kingdom of Ire- 
land! Does any sane man put his hat in the closets 
when he wants it every time he goes out ? No. I hung 
it up right here, on this very hook of this particular rack, 
and if it had been left alone, it would be there now. 
Some of you must have moved it. It hasn't got legs and 
couldn't get away alone." 

Master Bilderback suggested that it wouldn't beavery 
surprising if it felt its way along fur a little ways, for 
which atrocities he was rewarded with a wild glare and a 
vicious cuff from his unappreciative parent. Then Mr. 
Bilderback said, " Well, I suppose I can walk down town 
bareheaded." , 



224 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Well, that was the usual formula. Every body knew 
just what it meant, and as soon as it was said the family 
scattered for the regular morning search. Mrs. Bilder- 
back looked in all the closets with the air of John 
Rogers going to the stake, and then she went into an old 
chest, that had the furs and things put away in it, and 
was only opened twice a year, except when Mr. Bilder- 
back's hat was lost, which occurred on an average three 
times a day. She shook pepper or fine cut tobacco or 
camphor out of everything she picked up, and varied her 
search by the most extraordinary sneezes that ever issued 
from human throat, while ever and anon she paused to 
wipe her weeping eyes and say that "well, she never." 
Mrs. LUUerback's search for the lost hat never got 
beyond that chest. She would kneel down before it and 
take the things out one by one, and put them back, and 
take them out, and sneeze and sigh, and wonder occasion- 
ally "where the hat could be," but her search never 
went beyond that old moth proof chest. 

Miss Bilderback confined her search to the uncut 
pages of the last Scribner, which she carefully cut and 
looked into, with an eager scrutiny that told how 
intensely interested she was in finding that hat. She 
never varied her method of search, save when the 
approaching footsteps of her father warned her that he 
was swinging on his erratic eccentric in that direction, 
when she hid the magazine, and picking up the corner of 
the piano cover looked under that article with a sweet 
air of zealous interest, exclaiming in tones of pretty 
vexation, " I wonder where it can be ? " And it was 
noticeable that this action and remark, both of which she 
never failed to repeat every time her father came into 
the room, had the effect of throwing that estimable but 
irascible old gentleman into paroxysms of the most vio- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 225 

lent passion, each one growing worse than its prede- 
cessors, until they would culminate in a grand burst of 
wrath in which he ordered her to quit looking for his hat. 
Then she would retire with an injured air and tell her 
mother, between that indefatigable searcher's sneezes, 
that "one might wear one's self out slaving and looking 
for pa's hat in every conceivable place, and all the 
thanks one got for it was to be scolded." Master Bilder- 
back, he helped hunt, too. His system of conducting a 
search was to go around into the back yard and play 
"toss ball" up against the end of the house, making 
mysterious disappearances, with marvelous celerity, be- 
hind the woodpile or under a large store box, so oft as 
he heard the mutterings of the tempest that invariably 
preceded and announced his father's approach. 

But Mr. Bilderback. His was a regular old composite 
system of investigation ; it combined and took in every- 
thing. He raged through the sitting-room like a hurri- 
cane ; he looked under every chair in that room, and 
then upset them all to see if he mightn't possibly have 
overlooked the hat. Then he looked on all the brackets 
in the parlor, and behind the window curtains, and kicked 
over the ottoman to look for a hat that he couldn't have 
squeezed under a wash-tub. And he kept up a running 
commentary all the time, which served no purpose except 
to warn his family when he was coming and give them 
time to prepare. He looked into the clock and left it 
stopped and standing crooked. And he would like to 
know who touched that hat. He looked into his daugh- 
ter's work-box, a sweet little shell tha- " George" gave 
her, and he emptied it out on the table and wondered 
what such trumpery was for, and who in thunder hid his 
hat. " It must be hid," he said, peering down with a 
dark, suspicious look into an odor bottle somewhat larger 



2 26 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

than a thimble, "for it couldn't have got so completely 
out of sight by accident." If people wouldn't meddle 
with his things, he howled, for the benefit of Mrs. Bilder- 
back, whom he heard sneezing as he went past the closet 
door, he would always know just where to find them 
because (looking gloomily behind the kitchen wood box) 
he always had one place to put all his things (and he 
took off the lid of the spice-box), and kept them there. 
He glared savagely out of the door, in hopes of seeing 
his hopeful son, but that youthful strategist was out of 
sight behind his intrenchments. Mr. Bilderback wrath- 
fully resumed his search, and roared, for his daughter's 
benefit, that he would spend every cent he had intended 
to lay out for winter bonnets, in new hats for himself, and 
then maybe he might be able to find one when he wanted 
it. Then he opened the door of the oven and looked 
darkly in, turned all the clothes out of the wash-basket, and 
strewed them around, wondering ''''who had hid that 
hat?" And he pulled the clothes-line off its nail, and 
got down on his hands and knees to look behind the 
refrigerator, and wondered "who had hid that hat;" and 
then he climbed on the back of a chair to look on the top 
shelf of the cupboard, and sneezed around among old 
wide-mouthed bottles and pungent paper parcels, and 
wondered in muffled wrath " who had hid that hat ?" 
And he went down into the cellar and roamed around 
among rows of stone jars covered with plates and tied 
up with brown paper, and smelling of pickles and things 
in all stages of progress ; every one of which he looked 
into, and how he did wonder "who had hid that hat." 
And he looked into dark corners and swore when he 
jammed his head against the corners of swinging shelves, 
and felt along those shelves and run his fingers into all 
sorts of bowls, containing all sorts of greasy and sticky 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 227 

stuff, and thumped his head against hams hanging from 
the rafters, at which he swore anew, and he peered into 
and felt around in barrels which seemed to have nothing 
in them but cobwebs and nails ; shook boxes which were 
prolific in dust and startling in rats, and he wondered 
" who had hid that hat?" 

And just then loud whoops and shouts came from up 
stairs, announcing that "here it was." And old Bilder- 
back went up stairs growling, because the person who 
hid it hadn't brought it cut before, and saw the entire 
family pointing out into the back yard, where the hat 
surmounted Mr. Bilderback's cane, which was leaning 
against the fence, "just where you left it, pa," Miss Bil- 
derback explained, " when we called you into supper, 
and it has been out there all night." And Mr. Bilder- 
back, evidently restraining, by a violent effort, an intense 
desire to bless his daughter with the cane, remarked with 
a mysterious manner, that " it was mighty singular," and 
putting on the hat, he strode away with great dignity ; 
leaving his wife and daughter to re-arrange the house. 



228 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MIND READING. 



ONE morning, about the middle of the Spring term, 
Master Bilderback made his appearance at school 
with a subdued manner apparent in all his actions, while 
a cast of sadness mingled with traces of pleasant mem- 
ories overspread his countenance. It was, in short, that 
general expression of penitence which people assume 
after a holiday of more than usual hilarity. His quiet 
manner astonished the scholars and alarmed his teacher, 
who feared that it was a portent of some unusual mis- 
chief, and kept her eye upon the lad in consequence. He 
did not appear to be conscious of the surveillance under 
which he was placed. He bent no pins, he chewed no 
gum, he fired at the adjacent scholars no projectiles of 
masticated paper during the morning; no dismal but 
subdued cat-calls were heard from the vicinity of his 
seat; no grotesque grimaces made his neighbors laugh 
with uncounterfeited glee ; restful were his feet, and quiet 
the fingers which were wont to drum on the desk four 
minutes out of every five. Master Bilderback was either 
in some deep affliction or he was ill. There was some- 
thing wrong about him. 

It transpired, along toward noon, when Master Bilder- 
back's spirits began to rise a little, that he had indeed 
passed under the rod, with his father at the other end of 
it, during the evening previous. The waters of affliction 
had gone over his soul, and his back had gone under the 
sole of his mother's slipper. It seems they had company 
at Mr. Bilderback's that evening, quite a large party, in 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 229 

fact, and the conversation turned on mind reading. The 
discussion became very spirited, Mr. Bilderback being 
the leader of the party which avowed its belief in mes- 
meric influences. The usual arguments of learned length 
and thundering sound were hurled back and forth, Mr. 
Bilderback winning especial distinction by the clearness 
with which he proved that, in certain esthetic conditions 
of the mental and physical systems, the peculiar psychic 
forces which always existed in a latent state, were roused 
into an active condition; and the action of the intellect 
upon the cerebrum was felt in the cerebellum, and trans- 
mitted by mesmeric condition to the candelebra, where 
the psychomatic transfusion of the occipital parietis 
made the Ego as cognizant of the mutation and genu- 
flexions of the non-Ego, as though the psychic modifica- 
tions really impinged upon the same ganglion ; and the 
nerve waves along the ganglia of the two systems, trans- 
muted by a touch of the hand, were, and could only be, 
identical. And Mr. Bilderback's party said, "Yes; what 
could you say to that, now? " A.nd the other party shook 
their heads and said, "Yes; but that was only a theory, 
after all; they would like to see the hypothesis demon- 
strated." And at that critical juncture, Master Bilder- 
back, who had been an attentive listener, spoke up, in 
his rough, horrid style, and declared that " that wasn't 
nauthin';" that they tried it at school, an' he could let 
the boys hide things and then lead them right to the 
place where they were hid. The excitement ran high 
for a few moments, and Master B. was closely catechised, 
but he never varied from his original story; and they 
finally determined to try him. 

Mr. Tweesdle, a young fellow who dotes on poetry and 
Miss Bilderback, was the first subject. He announced 
that he was thinking of a certain object, and by the way 



230 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

he looked at the mind reader's sister, everybody thought 
they knew what it was. But Master Bilderback seized 
him by the hand, led him out in the hall and up to the 
hat-rack, followed by the entire company, and reaching 
his hand into Mr. Tweesdle's overcoat pocket, drew forth 
a paper bag containing a pound of sausages, half a dozen 
eggs, and a couple of rusks, remarking, " There, that's 
what you're thinking of." And just at that moment he 
certainly was, although he shook his head in an idiotic 
manner and laughed feebly, while all the rest of the 
people never smiled, but only looked at each other and 
said, "Why, how funny!" 

This sad affair cast a gloom over the entire community 
for a few moments, but the people rallied and demanded 
another test. There was a general reluctance on the 
part of the visitors to take a hand in it, and so Mrs. Bil- 
derback was prevailed upon to be a subject in the course 
of scientific experiments. As soon as she had assumed 
a pensive expression and announced that her mind was 
wholly occupied with one subject, to the exclusion of all 
other terrestrial things, the boy grasped her by the hand, 
and away they went, sailing up stairs, followed by the 
entire congregation. The mind-reader marshaled them 
into a room, and leading his subject straight to the bureau, 
drew from a small drawer a set of false teeth and a bottle 
of hair dye. Mrs. Bilderback shrieked, the company 
looked grave, and some of the ladies declared to each 
other that well now, they never did. 

There was another brief season of gloom, which was 
dissipated by Mr. Bilderback declaring that as neither of 
the subjects in the two experiments they had just wit- 
nessed had denied the accuracy of the mind-reader's 
judgment, he would submit to the test himself. Great 
applause greeted this determination, and as Mr. Bilder- 



AND OTHER HAWK ■> EYETEMS. 



23t 



back, with a glance that threatened a massacre if there 
were any tricks played on him, placed his hand in that 
of his son, the congregetion rose en masse to follow 
where the mind-reader might lead. Master Bilderback 
placed his hand against his father's forehead for a mo- 
ment; then he placed it against his own and remained 
for several seconds in a thoughtful posture, and then led 
his reluctant parent, followed by the company, out of 
doors, and calling for a lantern, which was provided, they 
went into the wood shed, where the mind-reader, despite 
several stealthy nudges from his parent, reached his arm 
behind a pile of hickory knots, and drew forth a whisky 
bottle nearly a foot long, flat as a board, and about half 
full. Then a shadow fell upon the community that not 
even the cordial good nights that were exchanged at the 
door could dissipate, and after the footsteps of the last 
reveler had died away in the distance, Master Bilderback 
held two separate private seances with his parents, the 
remarkable manifestations of which occasioned the sub- 
dued state of mind and unusual depression of spirits 
which were so painfully apparent in the young man the 
following day. 

9* 



23 2 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



A SAFE BET. 



ONE night, last Winter, old Mr. Balbriggan, who lives 
out on Columbia Street, had occasion to make a 
journey out to the wood shed to get the hatchet. It was 
very dark, and as there was no lantern about the house, 
Mr. Balbriggan took a kerosene lamp, and shading it 
very carefully with a big tin pan, started out to the wood 
shed. The wind was rather uncertain and gusty, and 
Mr. Balbriggan had some misgivings about his getting 
out to the shed without accident; and every time the 
lamp flared, his mind misgave him. "I'll bet a dollar 
that lamp'll blow out," he muttered when the first gust 
came, but he shied the tin pan around with great prompt- 
ness, and the lamp steadied down. There came another 
gust and a bigger flare, and the chances for the lamp 
going out improved so decidedly that the old gentleman 
promptly raised his first stake. " I'll bet a dollar and a 
half," he muttered, "that lamp blows out." Then the 
wind lulled a little, and as he hurried on toward the 
shed it was so quiet that, while he didn't quite lose all 
confidence, he began to hedge a little; "I'll bet fifty 
cents," he said, " it'll go out before I get back." Another 
gust and a flare. " I'll bet two dollars that lamp blows 
out," muttered the old gentleman again, chipping a little 
higher as the chances seemed to grow better ; but again 
he saved the light by the timely interposition of the tin 
pan. " I'll bet three dollars," he cried with great earnest- 
ness, as the next gust came, "this lamp'll blow out;" but 
there were no takers and the lamp rallied again. But a 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



*33 



still stronger gust fairly lifted the flame out of the top of 
the smoked chimney ; and the old gentleman hissed in a 
hoarse, suppressed whisper, "I'll bet five dollars this 
lampll blow out." But it settled down to work once 
more, and did very well until Mr. Balbriggan got very 
close to the woodshed ; when the wind rallied and came 
at the lamp from two or three directions at once, and the 
old gentleman fairly shouted, " I'll bet ten dollars this 
lamp'll blow " and just then the door of the wood- 
shed blew violently open, hitting the lamp and the tin 
pan, knocking them both out of Mr. Balbriggan's hands, 
and striking the old gentleman a terrible blow in the face 
that made him see more lights dancing in the air, for 
about a second, than even the lamp could send forth. 
And while he held his nose with one hand and groped 
around with the other to find where he was, there came 
from the house door the voice of the eldest juvenile Bal- 
briggan, falling through the darkness like a falling star : 
" Raise him out, pa, raise him out ; make it a hundred 
dollars; you've got a dead sure thing on it! " 



234 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



THE LAY OF THE COW. 



SWITCH engine Louisa, " B., C. R. & M.," 
Was slowing up Front Street about three P. M., 
When the stoker looked out of the window to say, 
" There's a cow going cross the t-r-a-c-kay." 

Pensively halted the cow on the track, 
Burs on her pendent tail, bran on her back; 
Dreaming of Summer, she seemed not to see 
The approach of the switch e-n-g-i-n-e. 

Once more spake the stoker, "There she is now," 
" Bully," the engineer quoth, "for the cow." 
And reversing his engine he cried, " Shoo! Oh, shoo! " 
Said the stoker, "Oh, shoo't the see-oh-doubleyou." 

Shrilly the whistle shrieked for its alarm, 
And the stoker threw firewood and coals in a swarm ; 
But the cow never heeded, nor thought that her star 
Was setting at four miles an h-o-u-r. 

The switch engine struck her about amidships, 
And her Summer dreams met with a total eclipse ; 
It mangled her carcase, most shocking to see, 
And threw her down Front s-t-r-double-e-tea. 

Sadly the engineer drew in his head, 
And "pulled her wide open/' as onward he sped; 
But the stoker smiled gayly, "Old fellow," said he, 
" There's some cheap porterhouse s-t-a-k-e."* 

* That isn't the way to spell porterhouse steak, but the right way wouldn't 
rhyme. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 235 



YOUNG MR. COFFINBERRY BUYS A DOG. 



PEOPLE lifted their eyes above their mufflers one 
raw November morning as they walked down Jeffer- 
son Street, and smiled and grinned, and laughed even 
unto hysterical weeping, as they watched the toilsome 
and uncertain progress of a patient young man who had 
bought a dog and was leading his property home. It 
was a nice enough kind of a dog, one of the kind of dogs 
whose mouth begins back close to the shoulders. It had 
dreadfully long legs, this dog, with great knobs of knees, 
and its restless tail had a dejected droop, as though the 
dog was just heart-broken at the idea of leaving his old 
home. The young man was leading the dog along with 
a very long string, one end whereof was tied around the 
dog's neck. The only trouble with the dog was that he 
was young. He had not attained the years of discretion. 
He couldn't trot placidly along thinking of things. He 
couldn't walk at his master's heels with a face as solemn 
as though he expected to be sausage before Thanksgiving 
Day. He was a nervous, fidgety, inquisitive dog, and he 
tried to read all the signs, and crawl under all the wagons, 
and dive between every body's legs as he went along. 
And the first thing he knew, he had a contract on hand 
that was much too big for him, and he was just about 
crazy over it, for he wasn't the dog to give up, if he was 
young, and he stuck to his work like a Trojan. And this 
was what made people laugh. The young man who was 
leading him had just lifted his hat to some lady acquaint- 
ances who were passing when the dog, looking up, mis- 



23^ '■ RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

understood the motion and thought his master was going 
to hit him a diff with that hat. With the natural instinct 
of self-preservation, the shy, timid young thing dashed 
between the young man's legs and ran to the length of 
his tether ; then he gave a terrified howl and darted back 
in the opposite direction, going outside the young man's 
right leg. Then, with a frightened yelp it sprang back 
between the legs again, circled around and came down 
outside the left leg. Then it ran rapidly around the 
young man, dived through his legs again and ran around 
him once and a half in an opposite direction, and his 
last maneuver closed the performance, for it wound the 
dog completely up, with his frightened face laid close 
against the young man's knee. Mr. Coffinberry blushed 
to his ears, and replacing his hat, began the task of extri- 
cating himself from the toils that artful dog had cast 
around him. But the animal's confidence was not yet 
entirely restored, for at every movement of Mr. Coffin- 
berry's hands, he squirmed and writhed and pulled back 
on the string until he was choked, and coughed and 
gasped in a manner most terrifying to the people not 
thoroughly acquainted with the symptoms of hydropho- 
bia, and the young man was naturally as badly frightened, 
when these paroxysms became very lively, as was the dog 
itself. It was fifteen minutes before the snarl was dis- 
entangled. Then before they had gone half a block 
further, that dog, after having rushed into and been 
forcibly, and in some instances rather petulantly, dragged 
out of every doorway on the line of march, incontinently 
shot down a cellar grating, where he was immediately 
clawed and scalped by a cat as big as a soap box, and 
was also nearly garroted by his master drawing him up 
out of the cellar by the cord, for all the world as though 
he was a well bucket. About thirty steps further on, 




ENTANGLEMENTS. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 239 

the dog ran between a clergyman's legs, got frightened 
and ran around him once and then dived between his 
master's legs, then rushed out toward the curb stone, but 
changing his mind, circled back and scooped in a blush- 
ing school teacher, and then gazed upon the mischief he 
had wrought, with hideous howls. The bystanders 
thought they never could get out of that entanglement. 
The minister declared alternatively that " he never did " 
and moreover that "well he never;" the blushing school 
teacher remarked " good gracious," and suggested also, 
" dear me," and, furthermore, " well, now ; " and the 
young man said something about the dog being damp, 
which was highly improbable as the morning was very 
raw. By dint of a great deal of persuasion and pulling 
and hauling, however, in which they were greatly assisted 
by the dog, the unhappy trio were finally separated and 
went their way, making ineffectual efforts to look uncon- 
cerned. Then the dog wrapped himself up around a 
lamp post ; then he got through the hind wheel of a gro- 
cer's wagon five or six times, back and forth, around a 
different spoke every time, while his master was talking 
to the grocer, and the latter drove off before the young 
man noticed what arrangements his dog had con- 
cluded with the wheel, and Jefferson Street was edified 
by the spectacle of a dog wound up to a wagon wheel 
and revolving rapidly with it, while a young man of 
pleasing address ran alongside the wheel and added his 
agonized appeals to the half- stifled wails of the hanging 
pup. They got the wagon stopped and got the pup 
loose, and the young man, wearied with the long struggle, 
resolutely turned toward the store, and walked rapidly 
away, the unhappy dog lying prone on his back, gasping 
and pawing the air, while the boys who witnessed the 
strange procession made the welkin ring with cries of 



240 

"Dog's a chokin! mister, yer dog's a chokin!" But 
young Mr. Coffinberry knew that so long as his dog was 
helplessly sprawled on his back he couldn't wrap the 
inhabitants of Burlington up in perspiring, distracted 
groups, so he kept on the even tenor of his way, and 
when he finally untied the string from the animal's 
neck and turned him loose in the store, there wasn't so 
much hair on that dog's back as would make a tooth 
brush. 



A MODERN GOBLIN. 



A DREARY, cheerless Christmas Eve. The dead 
hour of day, when the pale twilight falls over the 
earth, still and colorless as a shroud. Down the long 
vistas of deserted streets but here and there the feeble 
rays of some struggling light gleams through the gray 
twilight, pale as the glitter of a jewel on the brow of 
death. Across the dull waste of sky the ghostly clouds 
fly before a piercing wind, which whirls and tears their 
edges into fluttering fringes. The gloaming fades slowly 
and almost imperceptibly into night. Away back from 
the town, out on the bleak hillsides, the leafless trees 
toss their bare arms, gaunt shapes against the pallor of 
the sky, the swaying branches answering their mocking 
shadows, dancing like specters on the frozen ground; 
while the withered leaves rustle like very shudders. 

The hour, neither light nor darkness, neither day nor 
night, that, with its weird, indescribable magic, draws 
you from the cheery grate to press your face against the 
cold window, and dream out into the gray light, peopled 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 241 

with specters and visions — often grotesque, but never 
merry — that come trooping from every shadow. Comes 
a rosy little face, framed in tangled tresses — ah, long, 
long unfolding years must roll back to take you to the 
time when the laughing eyes looked into yours ; to-night 
you remember — dear child — the dimpled hands were 
crossed on the pulseless breast, when you were a boy; 
and the cheerless winter landscape, the dreary hills 
of snow, and the leafless forests stretch away, mile after 
weary mile, between your home and where the Christmas 
winds sigh plaintive monodies over her little grave. 
There comes a thoughtful, earnest face, manly and 
noble; a playmate of your boyhood, a college classmate 
and friend ; the man who stood for your ideal of all that 
is brave and true, and virtuous and generous. As you 
look at it, you remember, to-night, that when you saw 
the real face, so little time ago, it was worn and old and 
haggard, and stamped with the leprous mark of vice. 
You shudder at the recollection; but the pleading look 
of the vision goes to your heart as it fades away; and 
other faces, long forgotten, crowd before you. One, 
furrowed with marks of patient suffering and care, 
with silver bands in the brown hair drawn so smoothly 
away from the brow, mother-love glistening in the tender 
eyes,. mother-love in the quivering, heart-reaching elo- 
quence of the tremulous lips, mother-love in the caress- 
ing gesture of the gentle hands — what wonder that it 
lingers long, and fades only when you crush the burning 
tears that blind your eyes and veil the vision from your 
sight? And comes one sweeter, dearer than all — your 
heart throbs more quickly as you see a shadow rise in 
the deepening twilight — a face glowing with blushes and 
wreathed in smiles ; a face that shone into your life like 
sunshine, in its bright springtime days ; a face that has 



242 RISE AND FALL OP THE MUSTACHE, 

remained constant while everything else has changed— 
your old heart grows tender and young with dear recollec- 
tions, and you thank God that although years have set 
their mark upon this dear vision, it is still yours, loving, 
faithful, and powerful to bless and charm in every mood 
and at all times. It is gone ; and looming through the 
deepening shadows another form of familiar presence 
rises before you. The silvery tones of memory-bells chime 
like a Christmas choral through the bleak wind shaking 
so angrily the noisy shutters. It is the milkman, and he 
jangles all your sweet dreams out of tune, sending the 
ghosts your retrospect has raised back to the shadowy 
past. And as your visions disappear, you dismally watch 
the female vassals of the neighborhood sallying forth in 
answer to the tinkling summons, bearing all possible 
manner of squatty tinware and corpulent yellow bowls, 
in which to receive lawful but attenuated measures of 
that peculiar aqueous fluid of cerulean hue with which, 
under the ghastly appellation of " cream," our best 
society dilutes its table beverages. And when this 
amusement ceases to be longer interesting, you leave the 
draughty window and seek the more congenial com- 
panionship of the black, close-shut gas-burner, which 
out of respect to your conceit and the conventionalities 
of the Christmas time, we have designated a " cheery 
fire - place," with an incipient cold in your otherwise 
empty head. 

For the shadows have beckoned and reached to each 
other, and joined their giant hands, and danced until 
the light is frightened away. In heavier volumes rolls 
the black smoke from every chimney, indicating that the 
estimable and respectable business men of the city, hav- 
ing left their clerks with orders to save gas and noj waste 
the coal, and to close the store only when the last linger- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 2 43 

ing, possible chance of securing one more belated cus- 
tomer has faded into hopelessness, are now at home, 
enjoying the unspeakable luxury of heaping the stove 
with coal their wives have carried in, and driving the 
other members of the family to madness by monopoliz- 
ing the privilege of poking the fire. Gas lights twinkle 
in the streets, for the faithful almanac in the gas com- 
pany's office has been mislaid, and they do not know 
there will be a moon quite late in the morning. A ruddy 
glow of firelight and lamplight streams out into the gath- 
ering darkness when a door is opened, men are hurrying 
home, their faces averted, and their bodies bowed against 
the howling wind, or else scudding briskly before it. 
The city was hurrying home to enjoy its Christmas Eve 
in the bosom of its several families, and to scold the 
children and pack them off to bed, if they romped and 
made too much noise. Everybody knows what city it 
was, so there is no use wasting time describing it. It 
was just the same old city, only they had strengthened 
the little brick house down below the corner where the 
blacksmith lived, with a coat of whitewash. Just the 
same old city. 

And everybody knows the hill on the street, where it 
turns to wind up the bluff and go to the rich folks' houses 
on top of the long hill that stretches around behind the 
town like a great horse shoe, and looks down on all the 
business, and bustle, and noise, and hurry, and work, 
and fatigue that have made the city so rich and powerful. 
And just at the time we were speaking about a gen- 
tleman was making devious headway up this hill, just 
as the street leaves the business of the city and 
goes scrambling up to the quiet and rest on top of 
the hill. A discouraged looking gentleman, who seemed 
to have begun his Christmas at the wrong end, and so 



244 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

got nearly through with it before it had really com- 
menced. The gentleman's Napoleonic head was covered, 
part of the time, with a glossy silk tile, which art had 
shaped into the fashionable, uncomfortable cylinder 
which adorns the caputs of our Best Young Men, but 
accident, oft recurring, and too many vigorous slappings 
on and pattings down by the officious but ill-directed 
zeal of many friends, and too frequent steppings on by 
the owner as the last means of checking its mad career 
in a race with the wind, had graced this glossy cylinder 
with many alternate elevations and depressions, giving it 
that corrugated effect so attractive, natural, and useful 
in the washboard and concertina, but very repugnant 
and ungraceful in the silk hat. The gentleman's eccen- 
tric style of buttoning his overcoat, three holes over the 
same button, lent an air of abstraction to his general 
appearance, while his knitted brow told of intense mental 
conflict and exertion. He made little forays from the 
sidewalk to the middle of the street, returning to his 
pathway by devious and angular ways, as though striv- 
ing to baffle some unseen pursuer. From time to time 
he made vicious, impulsive, startled clutches at the 
streaming ends of his necktie, fluttering in the blast, 
which he regarded with a vague uncertain terror, and, 
when he had seized them, he laughed in hollow, hyster- 
ical accents. The smell of coffee was heard in the 
distance as he passed, and ever and anon, as the restless 
earth raised itself in precipitous terraces before him, he 
lifted his feet high in air and with lofty steps essayed to 
scale the treacherous mirage. He paused in his circuit- 
ous progress to shake hands with the last friendly lamp- 
post on that thoroughfare, expressing his confidence in 
that faithful municipal lighthouse as a "goo'role feller," 
who was, under any and every possible combination of 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 245 

circumstances, " all ri\" At times he felt for his hat 
with both hands, and having secured a firm grip upon 
its uncertain brim, he removed it from his head with 
great caution, and swinging it violently in the air, pro- 
ceeded with great enthusiasm and heartiness to " hurrah 
for" somebody, but invariably forgot who, when he came 
to the name, and contented himself with assuring him- 
self that that was " arri','' after which with gravity he 
felt for his head, found it, and with much deliberation 
got the hat up on top of it, generally sideways or upside 
down, and with great physical effort, crushed and pulled 
it on. At length, having parted company after affec- 
tionate and prolonged adieus, with the last friendly lamp- 
post, the young gentleman loudly announced that he was 
a "total wr — hie! — creek" and proceeded furthermore 
to declare that he would not and could not by any 
means be induced to seek the shelter of his mother's 
roof again until smiling morn should hail and deck the 
hills with gold, and the rosy-fingered hours should herald 
the coming of the god of day. And singing this true 
statement in a rich baritone, a kind of a wheelbarrow 
tone, in fact, possessing more volume and hoarse wheezi- 
ness than we would admire in Nilsson's chest tones, he 
made a vigorous but ineffectual effort to fall up the hill, 
and angrily ejaculating, " Ju know who yer pushin'? " he 
shot over the curbstone with frenzied gestures that 
seemed to proceed at least from ten pairs of legs, and 
disappeared in the gloom of the gutter, where he lay, and 
whence his stertorous breathing startled the nervous 
passers-by. 

Had the fallen man kept on the uneven tenor of his 
way a little farther he would have encountered a mys- 
terious being that would have transformed his snores into 
sounds of deeper intonation. The street, where it turned 



246 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

and led up the hill, was not a cheerful one : On the west 
side the bluff rises abruptly as a wall, and on the opposite 
side it sinks away into a dark, gloomy ravine, that has 
an uncanny look at the best of times, and the sidewalk 
is provided with a wooden railing, to keep careless or 
belated passengers from plunging down the hill -side. 
A little stream winds along the ravine, endeavoring, in a 
despairing kind of way, to find its way to the river, 
which it never does. It starts, but from the time the 
city was first settled there has been no record that the 
little stream ever got clear through ; nobody knows what 
becomes of it, where it goes to; but certain it is, that all 
trace of it is lost before it gets half way to any where. 
But we have naught to do with this forlorn little country 
brook that comes purling through pleasant meadows, and 
bubbling over white pebbles, and wrangling around great 
bowlders, to get bewildered and lost in the entangling 
mazes of the drains and gutters and sewers and culverts 
of the city. 

Seated on the railing of the sidewalk was an apparition 
of far less cheerful mien than the gentleman who, when 
we left him, had just wrapped the curbstone about him 
and laid down to snore the Christinas hours away. This 
figure wore a snow-white mantle, much too airy and 
summery for the season and very decidedly out of style, 
which fell from his angular shoulders in graceful folds, a 
portion of its light tissue being folded over his osseous 
head after the most conventional style of his class. As 
he swung his legs carelessly to and fro, they struck the 
lower boards of the railing with a strange rattling sound 
like muffled castanets, and his manner of whistling 
" Down Among the Dead Men," under his breath in that 
weird, ghostly place, with the bluff rising black and 
abrupt before him, and the ravine lying deep in impene- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 247 

trable shadow behind him, had that awful touch of the 
supernatural in it that would make one's blood run cold 
to contemplate. A ghostlier ghost never chose a ghost- 
lier time or place for his ghastly recreations. 

He ceased his hollow whistling and stilled his nervous 
legs as he heard approaching footsteps on the sidewalk, 
and dropped from his easy perch on the railing as a 
young man and a lovely maiden came toward him, toiling 
up the slope down which the December zephyr roared 
and swept into a fury that would make an Ulster over- 
coat feel sick. The young man's arm was wound ten- 
derly about his companion's shrinking seal -skin cloak, 
while he hoarsely whispered words into her ears, which 
were rosy with the exhilarating influence of twenty- 
eight degrees below zero. The ghost stepped in front of 
them. • 

" Excuse my hoarseness," he said, with a winning 
smile that extended over the entire width of his finely- 
chiseled face, " but I had the very disagreeable misfor- 
tune to have my throat cut in this exceedingly romantic 
spot about a half a century since, and my voice has since 
been affected to such an ex " 

The very wind paused in its noisy bluster to listen to 
the wild shrieks that were piercing the darkness like 
acoustic arrows, and the rapid patter of two pairs of 
Arctic over - shoes that were pounding the bosom of the 
frosty earth far down the hill, aw.iy from the shadow of 
the bluff, away from the dreadful blackness of the ravine, 
in the direction of the gleaming street lamps of the city. 

The ghost leaned upon the railing and sighed as he 
said : 

" This was not the style of responding to an apology 
when I dwelt among men. Perhaps my voice, which I 
have not used before for fifty years, has that in its 






248 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



mouldy accents which is disagreeable, startling, and 
possibly repulsive, to mortal ears. I will modulate my 
intonation." 

He paused to observe the figure of a portly man, loom- 
ing vaguely through the night, as, with many asthmatic 
puffs, the well-fed citizen essayed to beat up the hill 
against the wind. 

" He looks," said the specter, musingly, " very much 
like an honest old settler I used to know, who sold whisky 
to and stole furs from the Indians, the year after I first 
came to what is now this city." 

The panting citizen came alongside and was passing 
by, when the ghost dropped his bony hand noiselessly in 
the hollow of his arm. 

"A thousand pardons, my dear sir/' he began, "but I 
observe almost extraordinary resemblance in " 

"Oh-H-H-H-h, Lord!" 

And again the ghost was alone. As the echoes of the 
excited and grossly misapplied remark of the citizen died 
away in the mocking echoes of the dreary solitudes, the 
ghost walked across the street and carefully examined 
the face of the bluff, in which direction the portly mortal 
had made his unceremonious and abrupt exit. 

" No," the specter remarked, after a critical inspection, 
" it is very evident that he did not plunge through the 
hill ; he certainly ran over its summit. The celerity 
with which he accomplished this undertaking at his time 
of life, and in his condition of superfluous flesh too, 
smacks almost as much of the marvelous to me as I did 
to him. I would be willing to bet my boots, now," he 
added, with a ghastly wink at his bare feet, " that the 
portly old party can not come here to-morrow noon and 
get over that hill inside of twenty -five minutes." 

" Passenger travel on this street," he continued, resum- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 249 

ing his station on the sidewalk, " is livelier than it was in 
my time. As I remember, the two gentlemen who per- 
formed the surgical operation on my windpipe, which has 
so disagreeably affected my voice, had to wait here for 
me five hours in the cheerless gloom before my other 
business engagements permitted me to come along and 
make an involuntary and unwilling third in their inter- 
esting little surprise party. And I sat on a stump near 
this very spot, and watched my lifeless remains nearly 
two days before the coroner found them and gave them 
the customary inquest with a fearful and wonderful ver- 
dict, followed by Christian burial. Yes, yes, the village 
has been prosperous since then, and now — but soft, a 
young man — a lover, too, or I'm no ghost. I will be- 
friend him and he will love me." 

A goodly young man he was indeed, as ghost or girl 
would wish to see. Torture racked his soul when, at 
every step, his dainty boots, a size and a half too small, 
touched the ground. And even the snowy expanse of 
linen cuffs, weighted with moss -agate sleeve buttons, 
failed to conceal the fact that his flame.- colored kids 
would not button. Though the piercing wind chilled him 
to the very marrow, his overcoat was opened and thrown 
back from his throat to display the blue necktie that 
graced his paper collar. The elaborate and painful cos- 
tume betrayed his errand. You might wring bergamot 
out of the air when he passed along, and there was 
jockey club on his handkerchief, and his breath smelled 
a little of sozodont, some of trix, and a great deal of 
something else. The ghost looked after him, as he 
passed by, with as much friendly admiring interest as he 
could throw into his rather open countenance, and then 
gathering his robe about him followed swiftly and silently 

at the limping heels of the nice young man, who toiled 
10 



250. RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

painfully but very patiently and exquisitely properly up 
the hill until he reached the summit of the grade, and 
pausing before a mansion of pretentious appearance, 
proceeded to investigate the ever changing mysteries of 
a front gate. ' 

Properly constructed, the front gate is more fearfully 
and wonderfully made than the architect who designs or 
the carpenter who builds it. No other created or manu- 
factured thing in the whole wide universe can equal or 
rival it for original perversity and malignant obstinacy. 
A patient man, whose soul is melting within him from 
chronic and exaggerated meekness, will fall from grace 
and relieve his tortured soul in a burst of giant powder 
profanity after fifteen minutes' struggle with a front gate, 
and then he will shower a tempest of abuse upon the 
unknown man who contrived such a diabolical and out- 
rageous gate, and he will cease to struggle with it and 
will climb over the fence and disintegrate his raiment on 
the pickets, and abrade his cuticle all the way down his 
back as he slides off, and then his soul will be tossed into 
a very sirocco of passion and mortification when he sees 
the dog of the mansion come trotting along and open the 
gate with a simple push of his nose. Or a woman, full 
of a woman's love and yearning tenderness, will take 
hold of a gate and tug at it, and pull and haul and jerk 
until she nearly drags the solid posts up by the roots, and 
when all the blood in her system is boiling in the top of 
her head, and her eyes are starting from their sockets, 
and. she dissolves in tears of utter, abject wretchedness 
and rage because she is debarred by virtue of her sex 
from the ecstatic privilege of swearing at the gate and 
the pirate who made it, a grinning boy will open the bar- 
rier by merely pulling it the other way. Men with real, 
living ideas, and lofty aspirations, and soaring ambitions, 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 25 I 

and grand, illimitable thoughts, swelling and groaning 
and throbbing in heart and brain, have stood before an 
orthodox front gate and manipulated its fastenings, mov- 
ing that piece this way and this one that, and all of them 
the other, until the pot-metal securities have assumed 
the vexed and perplexing varieties and dimensions of a 
Chinese puzzle with the delirium tremens or a Centen- 
nial election table. And then, when at last with a 
despairing groan he lets go of it, and raises his 
hands to heaven to call down its righteous judgment 
upon the unregenerate mocker who made that gate, it 
slowly swings open by its own weight, and the distressed 
Christian discovers to his unspeakable amazement that 
he has had it open twenty times within the last fifteen 
minutes. And all these troubles are magnified after 
night. Hook and staple connect the swinging gate and 
the immovable post where hook and staple there were 
none before. The most trifling and ordinary bolt has a 
way of acquiring a double action after dark, so that what- 
ever is loosed at one end is immediately fastened up as 
tight as a candidate at the other. Nails, too, appear, 
driven in the post immediately above the latch, and 
finally, when all other ties are sundered, lo, a strap hugs 
the whole structure in its binding embrace. It is a work 
of ten minutes to find the buckle, and when found it is a 
knot, tied when the strap was wet, and now firmer in its 
clinging folds and more intricate in its appalling entan- 
glements than the famous knot which Gordius of Phyrgia 
tied in his chariot harness, a knot which baffled even the 
sublimest efforts of the Chicago divorce lawyers. Even 
the simplest form of a gate latch known to man, com- 
posed of a round hole in a post into which a stick is 
thrust athwart the gate, is a snare, a vanity, a vexation 
of the spirit and a mortification of the flesh ; for no liv- 



252 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

ing man ever opened a strange gate of this genus that 
the stick did not come out with a jerk, rasping the 
abraded knuckles along the rude edges of the pickets. 

With a gate which presented, or rather concealed, and 
successively developed, like masked batteries, all the 
modern combinations of baffling elements and inventions, 
the young man has all this time been expostulating. A 
good young man, for while he has been laboring with 
that remorseless gate with all the intensity of purpose 
and earnestness that fires the blood of youth, he has only 
relieved his impatient swelling soul by saying from time 
to time that "he would be dad binged," once or twice 
varying the tense, as the future suddenly seemed to break 
upon him with all the fullness of time, to declare that he 
was " dad binged," and several times, as though conscious 
of some degree of uncertainty attending the whole matter, 
devoutly hoping that, at some indefinite time in the vague 
hereafter, he might be " dad binged. " Once he passed sud- 
denly to the imperative and passive, appealing to some 
unknown quantity to " dad bing the dad binged old gate," 
a confusion of mood, tense and voice that was absurd, 
and even the ghost, which stood in the porch of the man- 
sion watching his movements with that all -absorbed 
interest which visitors from another world display in 
terrestrial matters, shook his head gravely, as if doubting 
the advisability of a needless waste of power in dad 
binging that which was already declared dad binged. 
But the ghastly visage relaxed in a grim smile, as with 
one last tremendous effort, the adolescent raised the 
barrier from its fastenings, hinges and all, and fell for- 
ward to the gravel walk with the fiendish gate clasped in 
his arms, reaching the ground in a rattling chorus which 
roused all the dogs this side of the moon. 

Disengaging himself from the chaos into which the 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 253 

gate had fallen, the young man reached the porch with a 
halting step, and as he stood near the door, brushing 
gravel off his clothes with his tattered kids, the ghost 
gathered his bustle and train about him, slid deftly- 
through the key hole, and flattened himself against the 
door on the inside. The tinkle of the bell had scarcely 
sounded in the hall when a light footstep was heard in 
echo to its clamor, and a beautiful young girl hastened 
to the door. She opened it, but the ghost stepped before 
her and faced the smiling, blushing, bowing young man, 
threw his gaunt arms around his neck, and in a hollow 
whisper began, 

"Darling! I have watched so long for " 

A terrific yell rang through the corridors like almost 
any other yell would ring under similar circumstances. 
A rush of hasty feet along the gravel walk, a stumble, a 
crash and a dismal howl at the site of the fallen gate ; 
then the dying echoes of fleet, pattering footsteps in the 
distance, and then silence, dispossessed of her curtained 
throne for one brief moment, resumed her noiseless reign, 
and the smiling ghost, after a vain effort to dig himself 
in the ribs, chuckled with dismal jollity and hid his 
shadowy form in the recesses of the porch. 

The young girl stood spell-bound, gazing out in the 
direction of her vanished lover, and shaking her lovely 
head in mute, astonished negations, in response to the 
hurried and excited inquiries of the family, who came 
swarming into the hall in all possible stages and degrees 
of amazement and terror, propounding with great volu- 
bility all the conundrums which would naturally suggest 
themselves in consequence of such an astounding and 
unheralded and unprovoked outburst of human voice. 

" I cannot imagine what did ail him," she said at 
length, when her stern father, in mild reproof, had laid 



254 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

his heavy hand upon her rounded shoulder, and oscil- 
lated her lithe form to and fro until her back hair was in 
her hands, and the floor was strewn with hair-pins and 
samples of curls, thick as autumnal leaves and one thing 
and another strew the brooks in Vallambrosa and vicinity. 
" I opened the door, and before I could say ' Good 
evening/ he opened his mouth to its fullest extent, and 
with a look of horror, fled from my presence, leaving no 
token save an amount of noise altogether incommensurate 
with his size. I can't imagine what he could have seen 
to affect him so. I was afraid at first that I hadn't 
rubbed the pearl powder out of my eyebrows, but I had." 

Every member of the convention offered a suggestion 
or an explanation of the mysterious affair, but they were 
all overruled by paterfamilias, who, venturing the gruff 
opinion that the young man was in the habit of placing 
himself exterior to sundry and various decoctions dis- 
pensed at those retail drug stores which are, by law, 
closed on Sundays, and had merely incurred that pecu- 
liar form of mental distemper in which the patient keeps 
a private menagerie on exhibition in his boots, drove his 
wondering family back to the parlor. 

But youth is buoyant. Its sorrows -are transient and 
its tears are April rain, flecked with the sunshine even 
while they fall ; its fears are short lived as its sorrows, 
and die away when the thought or scene that gave them 
birth is gone. So he who flew from the hideous shadow 
that had veiled the fairy figure of his love from his fond 
gaze, blushed in the darkness at his nervous fancy, and 
re-arranging his wardrobe, retraced his steps with more 
of that native grace and innate dignity peculiar to the 
young man of the nineteenth century, than he had dis- 
played while making his presence seldom. Again he 
passed the wreck of the demolished gate, and once more 



ANt) OTHER HAWK-EYETEMS. 255 

he rang the bell, and listened for the echoing footfall, 
while the attentive specter came and stood demurely at 
his elbow. 

"You horrid boy," murmured a sweet voice through 
the keyhole, "I have a great mind not to let you in. 
What made you act so perfectly ridiculous ? " 

" Dearest," the young man said, " it was a foolish, hor- 
rible fancy; I will never frighten you again." 

" It was perfectly dreadful," she replied, " horribly, 
dreadfully awful. How could you be so perfectly hor- 
ridly dreadful? But you may come in this time." 

And with coquettish deliberation she opened the door, 
to see the ghost, bending his smiling gaze upon her color- 
less face and staring eyes. 

" Thank you," he said, in hollow tones, " since you 
insist upon it, I will come " 

" Oo-oo-^-e-e-E-E ! " 

And thump ! She dropped to the floor with a velocity 
and abruptness that even astonished her ghost. Dumb 
with amazement, her lover stood gazing at her form, lying 
prone upon the new hall carpet, emitting a series of long- 
drawn shrieks. He recoiled, as again the members of 
the family came pouring and buzzing out of their rooms, 
like hornets from their domicile on a swaying apple tree 
bough, jarred rudely by the unconscious granger's tower- 
ing head. The angry father caught a glimpse of the 
trembling, half-stupefied, and thoroughly mystified youth, 
standing near the door-way, appealingly and timorously 
offering his explanations. The parent, with a few hurried 
words, disappeared up stairs. Quickly he returned, 
bearing in his hands a ponderous shot-gun, at the sight 
of which the young man, without pausing to explain, 
fled quite as precipitately, and with as little ceremony, 
as he had sauntered away from the embr.ice of the ghost. 



256 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Because," he remarked to the wind, which was vainly- 
trying to keep pace with his flying movements as he 
cleared the fallen gate with a bound, and waltzed airily- 
down the road, as though tight boots were a vision and 
an unreal dream, " because the old man appears to be a 
trifle impatient to-night, and I would not ^cross him in 
his sadder moods. He might do that to-night for which 
to-morrow I might mourn." 

And deftly passing from twelve to fifteen linear feet 
of solid earth beneath each foot, oft as he raised it 
from the ground, with swift evasion he transferred him- 
self to healthier climes and more congenial scenes. 

The indignant father, meanwhile, had stepped out on 
the porch, and holding his warlike weapon a-port, peered 
angrily into the gloom for a glimpse of the flying figure, 
whose distant, echoing footsteps he could faintly hear. 

" Thou art so dear," he said, " and yet so far." 

To him the silent ghost approached. Standing by his 
unconscious side, the specter leaned his bony elbow 
upon the mortal shoulder, resting his hollow cheek upon 
his attenuated hand. Then, with a graceful motion and 
an easy gesture, of which a ballet dancer might be proud, 
he drew aside the lower portion of his drapery, disclosing 
to view a pair of emaciated shins of which a ballet 
dancer would most certainly be ashamed. Crossing one 
of these specimens of anatomical curiosities in front of 
the other, he rested the bended limb upon the toes, and 
stood thus for a moment, in that elegant and charming 
pose so much affected by our best young men at the 
opera and theater, who place themselves on exhibition 
for the untaught multitude upon every possible occasion. 

For a few brief moments he stood thus, wrapped in 
admiration of his refined and elegant appearance, then 
dropping his face and turning it until his breath, if he 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 257 

had any, would have swept the cheek of his unconscious 
companion, he said: 

" Let me entreat you, dear sir, to do nothing rash. Let 
me implore you to put by your murderous weap " 

Bang! bang! Two loads of death -dealing buckshot 
perforated the roof of the porch, and the howl of an 
elderly voice mingled with the crashing, discordant echoes 
that rose clattering through the darkness. The slam of 
a door, and the rush and scramble of many feet suc- 
ceeded, followed by the clanging of locks and bolts ; the 
subdued hubbub of many voices could be heard, detail- 
ing in many exaggerated phrases, extravagant narratives, 
and with a smile of grim amusement playing across his 
expressive features, like a telegraphic line from one ear to 
the other, the specter learned, as he listened at the key- 
hole, that while the master of the house had been stand- 
ing on the porch, a pale blue light suddenly clove the 
night, accompanied by a sulphurous smell, in the midst 
of which appeared, rising out of the ground, a colossal 
body with five heads, and with hideous gashes yawning 
in its throats, from which the welling blood flowed down, 
and splotched and streaked the long white robe with 
horrible carmine stains. Its many eyes, the patrician 
said, glared like burning coals, and its hair twined and 
wreathed itself in fantastic shapes, like living serpents. 

The specter assumed a thoughtful look as he listened 
to these terrible revelations. 

"It is barely possible," he said, " that I am a maligned 
apparition. From his vivid powers of imagination, and 
a slight tendency to exaggerated word coloring in narra- 
tion, one would take this elderly party for one of the 
gifted prevaricators who deal in political prophecies in 
the presidential year. I may not be a very handsome 
ghost, but I do most profoundly believe that this portly 



258 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Ananias who, I see, is just now leaving the room to learn 
how his daughter is coming on, has most foully traduced 
my personal appearance. And while there is no one in 
this apartment save that comfortable -looking old lady, 
who has been terrified and mystified into motionless 
silence, I will quietly step in and settle this vexed ques- 
tion by consulting the pier glass." 

With that graceful, easy manner which is characteristic 
of a well-bred ghost, he slid through the keyhole, and a 
moment later, stood singeing his bloodless shins before 
the blazing grate, while he made a critical inspection of 
his visage in the mirror. After studying the picture for 
some moments in silence, he stroked his chin with a 
complacent air while a smirk of self satisfaction played 
over his features. 

" Any mortal," he murmured, " who would flee in terror 
from such a face as that ; any man who could detect any 
thing like an unearthly glare in those hollow eyes ; any 
creature who can find it in his heart to announce the dis- 
covery of hair on that head, or find a trace of blood 
about that figure, from throat to heels, is a lunatic, and 
should be looked after. Be looked after," he added, in 
an absent way, " Looked after. Looked after." 

" And," he continued, after a few moments' delibera- 
tion, " I should like to be appointed to look after him. 
He would then have a more faithful conservator than 
was ever appointed by a county court. I would interest 
and amuse him, and strive to divert his mind from the 
troubles which appear to have so disordered his imagina- 
tion and distorted his vision and faculties of observation. 
I would keep him in a state of constant mental activity. 
I would help him around, and I would make myself use- 
ful to this family in a variety of ways. For instance, I 
would make this old gentleman so distrustful of that long 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS, 259 

walk up the hill after dark that he never would stay 
down town late at night, and could not be induced to 
attend lodge, or 'just step down to the post-office' 
after supper. I would imbue his very nature with such 
an utter abhorrence for dark places that he would never 
kiss the hired girl behind the cellar door. Never again ; 
ne - ver, ne - ver. I would reform this man, and make this 
family happy, and this house should resound with mani- 
festations of excitement and exclamations of astonish- 
ment, and indications of very dubious merriment, as it 
were. I see much good in this virtuous and happy pro- 
ject, and I will cultivate the acquaintance of this excel- 
lent lady of the mansion, convince her of the necessity 
of a protector for herself and her family, and carry my 
plans into operation. I have a conviction that this would 
be a most comfortable house to haunt." 

He stepped to the side of the matron, and laying his 
icy fingers against her cheek to arouse her attention, and 
holding his throat shut with the other hand to prevent 
his voice escaping prematurely at the aperture which 
has been previously referred to, said, in a louder voice : 

" You will pardon the abruptness of my speech, my 
dear madam, but I. deem it my duty to inform you that 
it is my firm belief this part of town is haunted. Yes, 
ma'am, haunted. I shouldn't be surprised, indeed, if 
there was a ghost somewhere in this house this very 
minute. - In fact I have every reason for believing " 

Thus far his auditor had preserved such a respectful 
silence that the speaker believed she was listening with 
rapt attention, and he fondly hoped that he had at last 
found a friendly, appreciative gossip who would not 
interrupt his remarks with ill-timed applause before he 
was half through. Looking at her face, however, at this 
moment, the expression of her countenance was such as 



260 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

chilled him with disappointment. She was not splitting 
the night air with blood-curdling, discordant shrieks, it 
is true, but it evidently wasn't her fault. Her eyes had 
left their sockets and were standing out on her cheek- 
bones with nothing particular to do except to stare at 
each other across the top of her nose, .each with an 
expression of blank amazement at seeing the other there. 
Her mouth was alternately closing with sudden jerks and 
distending with spasmodic gasps ; noiseless, but all the 
more provoking on that very account. She appeared to 
be making strenuous efforts to rise, but as every attempt 
to assume an erect posture brought her closer to the 
ghost, she sank back helplessly in her chair after every 
effort, and resumed her dreadful staring and noiseless 
gasping. 

" You had better scream, madame," said the disgusted 
ghost. " Pray, do not restrain yourself on my account. It 
is really painful for me to witness your suffering. If my 
presence here is distasteful to you, pray have the good- 
ness to intimate the fact in the abrupt and startling 
manner so much affected by this family. You had better 
express your emotions, if you have any. If you have 
through any little passing thrill of excitement, tempora- 
rily lost the use of your voice, and find some difficulty 
in recovering it, perhaps I can assist you." 

With a horrible leer he withdrew the drapery from his 
neck, and leaning back his head disclosed the gaping 
incision in his respiratory and swallowing apparatus 
which had compelled him to go into the ghost business. 
As he had shrewdly conjectured, that startling display 
developed the full action of the old lady's dormant vocal 
powers, and, for the next five minutes, Bedlam was a 
quiet, sequestered cloister in comparison with that house. 
For an instant the author of all the uproar paused to 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 26 1 

smile at the vociferous woman screaming till the chan- 
delier trembled, and pounding a vigorous tattoo on the 
floor with her aged heels, and then he left the house, 
merely stopping as he went to look in on the kitchen, 
and by one genial wink at the servants establish a first- 
class English opera chorus in that department of the 
household. 

He then passed out into the chill air, and gliding 
slowly along the gravel walk, paused to contemplate the 
ruins of the front gate and speculate on the whereabouts 
of the handsome youth who had so lately enacted the 
part of a modern Samson, and had torn down the gates 
to Gaza little on the loved face which parental tyranny 
would thereafter conceal from his ardent gaze forever. % 

"It is ever thus," moralized the ghost; "at once the 
mightiest and the weakest being in created life, God's 
noblest work is the toy of bodiless phantoms. We tear 
down and we build up ; we purpose and we prevent ; we 
do and we undo ; we overcome every real difficulty, and 
surmount every actual obstacle, and at last, when our 
object is all but accomplished — lo, a shadow terrifies us, 
and the courage and labor of an hour, a year, or a life- 
time, are swept into ruins. At least, we used to do thus. 
I have left the firm, but the surviving partners carry on 
the business of life in pretty much the same old style. 
The world invents a great deal, but it doesn't improve 
very much. It is the same old world, after all. It has 
the locomotive and the telegraph, true; but the men who 
invented the locomotive and the telegraph loved, feared, 
hoped and lived pretty much as Caesar's couriers and 
Dido's sailors used to. Men declaim against the 
remotest possibility of the spirits of the dead revisiting 
the glimpses of the moon, and yet my presence affects in 
the same unpleasant and turbulent manner alike the 



262 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

most skeptical and the most credulous and surperstitious. 
I believe, speaking of spirits, I will go down town to a 
certain house I wot of, where parties of my friends, the 
Spiritualists, hold frequent seances, at which they con- 
verse familiarly, though ungrammatically, with the spirits 
of their own deceased friends, and of the illustrious 
dead. They will be glad to see me, I know, because I 
am intimately acquainted with some of the parties whom 
they occasionally summon back to earth, and they 
will be glad too, because I can correct some of the 
erroneous ideas they entertain in regard to the present 
condition of some of these spirits who are constantly 
writing back, in such execrable English as would make 
a cultured, intelligent ghost blush, how happy they are, 
and how glad they are that they died, and how much 
they know. I am as contented a ghost as one can find 
under the republic, and I never was glad that I died, and 
I never write to any of my relatives, and never visit any 
of them, except," he added thoughtfully, " my dear 
haunt." And he chuckled grimly over his ghastly little 
joke. 

In another moment he was seated comfortably beneath 
a table which was surrounded by a party of seekers after 
truth, who were patiently sitting up for the latest returns 
fr©m the spirit world. The ghost was much touched by 
the anxiety displayed by a young man in very long hair 
and green spectacles to hear from his departed uncle. 
The spirit mails were snowed in, or intercepted by 
guerrillas, or held for postage, or suffering from some 
other cause of detention that Christmas Eve; for it 
seemed as though the young man never would receive so 
much as a postal card from his deceased relative. The 
ghost pitied him, and just as the medium, a beautiful 
young girl of forty- nine summers, was passing into another 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 263 

trance, he crawled out from under the table and bowed 
pleasantly to the anxious inquirer. 

" I think I can allay any anxiety you may feel on 
account of your departed avuncular relative/' he said; 
" I have met him several times, and although the peculiar 
and pressing nature of his engagements elsewhere pre- 
vents his attending in person social assemblies on this 
side of the ground, he is -" 

He ceased speaking at this point, for his voice had 
long been drowned in the uproar of shrieks, and breaking 
furniture, and crashing glass, as the seance broke up 
along with the tables and chairs, and the anxious seekers 
after truth emerged into the night with window sashes 
hanging round their necks. Foreseeing that there would 
be trouble if he did not emigrate in order to permit the 
wanderers to return and resurrect the overturned stove, 
the messenger from the realm of shadows departed and 
once more sought his station on the hill. And again he 
whistled "Down Among the Dead Men" through his 
teeth, while he smiled pensively, and communed with his 
own pleasant thoughts. 

"It's just as I said," he mused; "had I been that 
young man's uncle, whom he so earnestly desired to see, 
his terror would have been just as great. They rap and 
call for us, they implore us to come, and when we come 
they go. And they go very abruptly. Some of those 
people to-night got out of that room by edging through 
fissures that would squeeze the very breath out of the 
leanest ghost I ever saw. Believer or skeptic, it makes 
no difference. Saul was not more terrified at Samuel's 
ghost, which he was so anxious to see, than was the 
witch who accidentally raised the apparition. But these 
broken, interrupted interviews with terrified mortals are 
growing monotonous. I will stay out all night, because 



264 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

it is Christmas Eve and my night out, but I will spend 
the remaining silent hours in meditation, and let the 
wicked old world sleep in peace, unless, mayhap, some 
belated wayfarer should stray this way, when I will re- 
venge myself upon him for the shabby treatment I have 
received at mortal hands to-night. I will frighten him 
so that rie will not be through screaming when I come 
here again next Christmas Eve. I have tried to be 
agreeable to everybody to-night, and everybody has 
refused to be sociable, and has repulsed my courteous 
advances with the most hideous shrieks and uproar. 
And to the next hapless mortal who shall cross my 
haunt, I will be terrible." 

He ceased speaking, and knotted his face with a series 
of horrible contortions and hideous grimaces, which he 
practiced until he acquired One which appeared to satisfy 
his fastidious taste. This one he exercised several times 
in order to fix it firmly in his memory, and then, folding 
his arms, he leaned against the railing and gloomily 
waited for a customer, as ill-natured and unhappy a 
ghost as could be found in all the haunts of men or 
specters. 

His ghostship did not have long to wait for a subject, 
standing there in the gloomy street, with the cold, glit- 
tering stars occasionally peeping timidly through the 
rifted clouds sailing overhead. Before long a heavy foot- 
fall was heard ascending the lower part of the hill, and 
then, as it came nearer, the dismal one could hear the 
frosty earth creaking under the passenger's feet at every 
step he took. A voice which was marked by that pecu- 
liar intonation which we so frequently notice in close 
proximity to a pick or a hod, uttered, in sentences so 
profusely vaccinated with trilled r's that it sounded like 
a high school commencement, a wrathful objurgation 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 265 

upon the wind, as the winter zephyr well nigh lifted the 
speaker from his feet. 

" Growl about that, will you ? " muttered the ghost, 
with savage gleefulness, " I'll make you wish the wind 
had blown you into the moon before you get to the top 
of the hill. I wish he would walk more slowly/' the 
specter went on, rubbing his fleshless hands in delighted 
anticipation ; " I should like to have a few moments' 
quiet enjoyment in contemplating the possible and prob- 
able actions of the worst frightened man in America. I 
have been accused of frightening people before now, but 
those vile slanders against my considerate and pacific 
disposition and my reassuring physiognomy will all be 
retracted and atoned for after to - night. After this man's 
experience no man, no living mortal will dare stand up 
and say that any one was ever frightened prior to this 
date. Why, there won't be as much hair left on this in- 
dividual's head, in about three minutes, as would make 
me a switch. All the doctors in America won't be able 
to get his eyes back into their proper places. He 
will howl and yell and shriek and pray to the day of his 
death. Scared? It isn't the word. It's too weak. 
Whistle, will you? " he continued, apostrophizing the 
approaching figure, " I'll make you wish you had a French 
horn fifteen feet long, with all the keys open and the 
mouth - piece cracked, to express your feelings through. 
Why," he said, arranging his robe and twisting his face 
into such a b'ood - curdling awful contortion that it raised 
a blister on the frozen ground and the very wind turned 
and blew up hill for dear life ; " why, my unsuspicious 
republican, you'll be the worst demoralized community 
in about fifteen seconds that ever disturbed the holy quiet 
of midnight." 

Stretching out his gaunt arm in a weird, ghostly 



266 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

gesture, the white drapery falling away from it in conven- 
tional folds, the specter stepped out to the middre of the 
sidewalk to confront the coming man. A man of 
medium size, the new- comer, with bluff square shoulders, 
twinkling eyes, a nose that had been made of a remnant 
so that the unfinished end retreated toward the eyes, a 
mouth puckered up in a melodious whistle, the head 
covered with an abundance of closely -cut hair of the 
shade of St. Louis pressed brick ; a ragged coat was 
buttoned close and the wearer carried under his arm a 
walking - stick of most benevolent aspect, the bulge on 
the end of which reminded one of an invitation to join 
the innumerable caravan. His whistle ceased as the 
ghost loomed up before him, not suddenly cutting off his 
tune in the middle of the note, but in a long-drawn 
diminuendo passage, commonly expressive of inexpressi- 
ble astonishment. 

The ghost slowly and impressively waved his extended 
arm in the direction of the gloomy ravine. The mortal 
shuffled uneasily toward the middle of the street in an 
effort to get round the unpleasant obstruction. The 
specter noiselessly glided before him and still confronted 
him with outstretched arm and hideous countenance, 
and both figures regarded each other in silence. The 
mortal was the first to open the conversation, who, after 
muttering under his breath, " The saints betune us and 
har-rum, an' phwat is he makin' thim faces at me for?" 
remarked in a brisk tone : 

"Cool avenin'!" 

Motionless as a statue, the ghastly figure glowered 
upon him in its frozen attitude and terrifying gesture. 

" Is it Tim Moriarity, as died the year before I kirn' 
over, I don* know ? " 

No reply and no change of posture on the part of the 
specter. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 267 

" Is it the Feenicks boys ye are thin, as kilt aich other 
the night ov the ball at the creek three years ago come 
nixt September an' jist two months lackin' six weeks after 
O'Flaherty's sisther dhrove the cow off the wagon bridge ? " 

Still the specter maintained its silence and its position. 

" Ye 've a mighty familiar countenince, onyhow," con- 
tinued the mortal, who kept up his cautious maneuvering 
for the weather gauge, in which he was steadily baffled 
by the ghost. " It seems to me I've seen the face av yez 
somewhare on a tombstone. Yer not livin' fur around 
here, mebbe ? " 

In hollow tones the ghost replied, "I am dead." 

"Did, is it? Oh, the saints rist yer ristless sowl. An' 
phwat are ye doin* out here ? Whaire do ye live — I 
mane, whaire are ye buried?" 

"At the top of this hill," came in the same hollow 
tones. 

" An' a mighty agreeable place that same is, to be 
sure," replied the mortal, in a conciliatory intonation, 
" shlapin' undher the grass, wid the cows and pigs 
browsin' and rootin' around all day long an' kapen' ye 
company nights. Born divil that ye air," he added, in 
a lower tone, " I wisht wan or the other of us wur thayre 
now, fur it's a onpleasant company ye air, anyhow. 
Well," he added, aloud and with great cheerfulness, 
"good night till ye. Be good to yerself." 

" Stay," uttered the terrible monotone ; " come thou 
with me." 

" Oh-h, the dev — I beg yer par-r-don. I mane I can't 
think of it. Luk at the time it is, an' see the murdherin' 
cowld I have in me head already, along ov being out till 
midnight. The wife and childher '11 be did intirely wid 
sittin' up fur me, an' " 

" Follow me !" said the hollow tones of the ghost. 



268 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Oh-h, tundher an' turf — I mane — I begyer par-r-don, 
don't shpake of it ; it's a married man I am. I can't 
sthay ; besides, there's no use — ivery place in town is 
shut up, and sorra the wan ov me dhrinks av they wasn't. 
I wouldn't taste a dhrop av I lived in lashins ov it ; I'm 
a whole Father Mathew society by myself." 

" Come ! Come ! ! Come ! ! ! " The sepulchral tones 
boomed out like a bass drum solo. 

"Aw-w-w! Millia murther! Go aisy now! Phwat 
du ye mane, divilin' the tin sinses out of me to come, 
whin ye see I want to go? By the mortial gob," he 
added, under his breath, " av I thought I cud find any- 
thing in yer head to feel it, avick, I'd make ye raisonable 
wid a welt ov this splinther av a sthick, Whist ! ye 
bloody minded villin !" he roared, with suddenly increas- 
ing courage, as some wakeful Brahma in a neighboring 
coop startled the night with a stentorian crow, which was 
shrilly echoed by a bantam and a dozen or more obscure 
roosters of no particular strain, like the birds that crow 
at election times, " Do ye hear that ? An' that ? An' 
that agin? An' the wan afther that? Scat! ye bloody 
minded Banshee, or we'll crow the rags arT o' yer beggarly 
back!" 

The ghost gave a hollow laugh, that sounded like water 
pouring out of a jug. 

" You may crow," he said, more in his easy conversa- 
tional style and tone than he had been using, " till you 
split your throats ; this is an anniversary night with me, 
and I won't go home till morning." 

His uneasy companion's face fell at this announce- 
ment, and he looked like a man who felt that he had 
prematurely committed himself. But he rallied again. 

" A anniver-sary, is it ? Do ye have it often ?" 

" About once a year." 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 269 

" Is that all ? An' just think ov yer makin' so much 
fuss about that ! Kape on yer hat, or what iver ye call 
it, or ye'll have a cowld in the head. Good avenin', 
agin." 

The ghost mildly protested against his haste. It was 
Christmas Eve, he said, a season devoted to sociability 
and good fellowship 

"An' a foine idee ye have of bein' sociable, too," 
interrupted his auditor; "Christmas is a nice enough 
saison, but a frayzin' hillside at midnight, wid the wind 
blowin' a jimmycane an' the thermomether twinty-sivin 
degrays ferninst Cairo, isn't the way I'm thinking to be 
sociable about it, jist." 

" I am delighted to have met you under such " 

" Faix, thin, thayre's only wan of us that's feeling so 
delighted about it." 

" Favorable and pleasant circumstances. I should 

never have forgiven myself had I permitted you to pass 
by without speaking. I must insist " 

"Begorra, thin, it's too har-r-d ye wad be on yersilf 
intirely. It's me that wad give mesilf absolution fur a 
week av I had gone around the other way an' never heard 
ov ye in me life." 

*' On your further acquaintance." 

" Thrue for you, avick, an' the furdther it is the betther 
it wud shuit me. An' the quicker we star-r-t, don't ye 
see, the furdther we can make it before mornin'. I know 
I'll think betther ov ye whin I can't see ye. Good 
avenin'." 

"Stay," said the specter, detaining him as he sought 
to hurry by, " I have that to tell you, and that to show 
you, to-night, which will make you a rich man, and send 
me back to my narrow resting place " 

" Oh-h-h ! hear 'im talk about it ! " 



27© RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" Never to leave it again until the last dread trump 



shall summon me." 

"Don't mintion it, don't; don't shpake ov it at all, at 
all.' 

"My tale is brief and sad." 

"An' have ye a tail, thin?" 

"Listen!" 

"Shpake!" 

"In early life " 

"Phwat's that?" 

" 1 plowed the raging main." 

"An' was ye a Granger, thin?" 

" Nay, I was a pirate ! " 

"Same thing; kape on; it's frazin I am." 

" I steeped my wicked hands in human gore for many 
years. When my atrocious crimes had amassed me a 
princely fortune, I repented me of my evil ways." 

"Musha, thin, it war you for knowin' whin to repint/' 

"I bade adieu to my evil companions, and taking my 
share " 

"Ah, did ye, though? An' it was a cautious ould 
reformer ye was, all the same." 

" of our ill-gotten spoils, I fled west — far to the 

inland — pursued by the stings of an avenging conscience 
and a sheriff's posse." 

"It was thim as stirred up yer conshince.' , 

" I reached this city in safety and hid my gold, stained 
with human lives, in yonder deep ravine. Oft as I needed 
money, I came here by night and got what I wished." 

"Can ye get any ov it now, do ye think? " 

"One winter night — a cold, bleak Christmas Eve — 
returning from such a visit to my hoard, I was waylaid 
by two men, who suspected my secret, on this very 
spot " 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 27 I 

"Good avenin'!" 

" Stay yet one moment. They seized me, hurled me to 
the ground " 

"Here?" 

" On this very spot where now we stand. They " 

"Let's walk furdther down the hill." 

"Listen. ^They hurled me to the ground, and, as I 
struggled for my gold, they — slew me!" 

" Phwat ! " 

" They cut my throat from ear to ear ! " 

" M-i-1-l-i-a m-u-r-d-t-h-e-r ! An' did it hurt ? * 

"It haggled some, but " 

"An' did yez niver git over it? " 

"I died!" 

" Oh-h-h-h ! Bones of the martyrs ! GOOD avenin ! " 

" Stop a moment. I " 

"Ah yes, shtop a minit. It's yerself is the pleasant 
man to be shtoppin' wid, on a hillside at midnight. Go 
on, thin, for it's starvin' wid the cold I am." 

"I died where I fell; and a coroner's jury, after due 
deliberation, returned a verdict, on my lifeless remains, 
that ' the alleged deceased came to his probable death in 
a fit of temporary inanition, induced by the administer- 
ing of narcotic drug or drugs, by some visitation of 
Providence to the jury unknown.' " 

" Wur that all, alanna ? I thought ye said they cut the 
throat ov ye." 

" They did. But the intelligent citizens who composed 
the coroner's jury could not see that that had anything 
to do with it. Since that time, once a year, on every 
anniversary of my untimely death, I am forced to leave 
my grave " 

" Oh, mortial man ! don't shpake ov it at all, an' us out 
here in the dark an' could, and niver a dhrop ov any- 



272 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

thing to rise the cockles ov me heart wid nearer than 
town. But kape on." 

" and haunt this hill. My spirit can not rest in 

peace until the money which I left concealed from human 
gaze shall be given into hands fit to be entrusted with 
wealth." 

"An' is that all, acushla? Go back to yer den, and 
dhraw yer stool in to the fire, an' be comfortable. Show 
me whare to dig jist, and sorrow light upon me av ye'll 
ever have any more nade to wake up an' worry about 
another cint as long as ye live — I mane, as long as ye 
don't live. Whare 's yer bank? Divil be in me but 
thare'll be such a run on it in about ten minits they'll 
think thare's an ould-fashioned American panic broke 
loose in ghostland, for a truth. Can't shlape because ye 
can't give yer money away! Musha, thin, it's meself 
can't shlape often enough because I haven't ony to give 
away, or to kape, ayther. Show me yer threasury, avick; 
I'm yer oysther." 

" Years ago I might have given it away, had men but 
known my secret. But the spell laid upon me " 

"A spell ov what ? " 

" forbade me to reveal my hidden wealth until I 

should meet a man going home sober, on Christmas Eve, 
who would not be afraid of me. The condition was a 
hard one, for although in my annual hauntings I have 
met many men plodding up this hill too drunk to be 
frightened, you are the first sober man I have met on 
Christmas Eve since the city was an Indian trading 
post." 

"Ah well then, it's small blame to them, for it's gettin' 
ready to shwear off New Year's day they are, the whole 
jing-bang ov thim. Troth, they do that every year." 

" You did not manifest any fear at my sudden ap- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 273 

pearance. You were not, apparently, afraid of me; 
you " 

"Afraid, is it?" 

" I merely remarked that you were not afraid of me." 

"Is it me?" 

"I said, my quick-tempered friend, that ' 

"Is it you?" 

"Calm yourself, my bellicose mortal, I simply " 

" Listen to 'im ! Hear 'im talk about ony body bein 
ashkared ov an ould bag o' bones sthandin' in the dark 
makin' faces ! Why, ye consaited old skeleton, is it 
comin' to Ameriky to be shkared wid you I'd be, whin 
we had a ghosht ov our own in the Ould Sod for more 
nor twinty years? A ghosht that wur worth bein' 
shkared ov, too." 

"You surprise me," said the ghost. "Are you quite 
certain that your own family was favored with the per- 
manent society of a ghost ? You will pardon me for in- 
timating that your appearance and dress do not indi- 
cate a station in life that calls for such a condition of 
things. For I am decidedly under the impression that 
we are permitted to haunt only aristocratic families, who 
inhabit large rambling houses, with long gloomy corridors 
and magnificent bay windows and lofty mansard roofs 
and heavy mortgages ; full of dark corners and conven- 
ient hiding places for ghosts, and frequently so uncom- 
fortable and dreary, especially on the occasion of a poor 
relation's visit, that no one but a ghost can enjoy living 
in them. I once knew a most respectable ghost, a specter 
of a most extraordinarily rugged constitution, who 
haunted one of these houses, and went to sleep in the 
spare room one night and was so laid up with the rheu- 
matism that he was unable to get out of his grave " 

" The saints betune us ! Don't mintion it ! " 
11 



274 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" for nearly six weeks. I took his place at the 

mansion during his indisposition. A dreary, frosty place 
enough, fitted up elegantly with a thousand-dollar piano, 
a costly mechanic's lien, Brussels carpets, a chattel mort- 
gage or two, French plate windows, a tax title, and a few 
similar expensive luxuries. I did not wish to be laid up 
with the rheumatism, so I took preventives instead of 
cures. From being frosty and chilly, I made that house 
the warmest place this side of " 

" Don't say it, alanna ! Skip that ! " 

" the equator," pursued the ghost, quietly. "It 

soon became the most hospitable mansion on the street. 
It was full of company all the time, and poor relations 
came and got square meals and slept in the best beds 
and were made welcome. You can not imagine how I 
softened that old fellow's proud heart. And you must 
excuse me if I say that you do not appear to belong to 
that favored class which is honored with hereditary 
ghosts. A ghost, my unsophisticated friend, is an ex- 
pensive luxury." 

" Thrue for you, it is, thin. The wan we had was the 
most expinsive thing we wur ever throubled wid. He 
kim till the house in me father's time an' I dunno how 
long befoar." 

" Did he look like me?" 

" Sorra the wan ov him. He'd ate a rigimint ov yez in 
a minit. Shouldhers like a sailor an' a head set on 'im 
like a bull dog's. He wur a ghosht now that cud talk to 
ye about bein' ashkared ov him." 

"Does he ever annoy — that is, entertain you now? " 

" Faix, thin he doesn't. It isn't here he cud live at 
all, at all. It wur in the ould counthry he did be vexin' 
us an* teasin' the life out ov us from mornin' till night." 

" Why, did he appear in the daytime, then ? " 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 275 

" It wur grace fur his bones that he did. Be the holy 
poker, alanna, it wur waitin' fur him in the dark twinty 
times a month we was. Catch an Irish ghosht comin' in 
the dark. He knowed whin to come." 

" Did you ever try to lay the ghost ?" 

" Wanst. The byes laid him wid a blackthorn stick, 
an' sorra the wan of him throubled us agin fur six weeks 
afther." 

" I don't understand. Why did he haunt you ? What 
was " 

" Why did he ? For the rint, av coorse. It was the 
thavin' ould landlord, bloody end to him. Talk about 
ghosts ! The ould boddagh Sassenagh gev us more throuble 
in wan day than the whole jing-bang ov such thin- 
legged spooks as yerself cud make us in a week. Thare 
was wan time the ould swaddler kim down to Muldoo- 
nery's shebeen — ye knew the Muldoonery's?" 

" The name is familiar, but I can not say that I ever 
had the honor of the family's acquaintance." 

" The betther for you thin, for ye died wid a whole 
head " 

" But my neck was spoiled." 

" Oh-h, by this an' by that, listen to him! Don't sphake 
ov it. The Muldoonerys was me father's own family. 
Ould Malachi Muldoonery, wan of the Killatalicks, thim 
as was own cousins to the O'Slaughtery's of Killgobbin — 
ah, thim was the high-toned wans fur ye ; when it come 
to ould families, they lifted the pins, jist. They had a 
ghosht ov thare own, a rale wan, sphooky enough to 
frighten a horse from his oats, that wore a long night- 
shirt like yer own, an' carried his head undher his arm. 
Oh, Gog's blakey, but he wur the boss ghosht. He wur 
beheaded fur headin' a rebellyun three hundhred years 
ago. Ah, tare-an-ouns, the tussle me own uncle, who 



276 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

was an O'Slaughtery, had wid this same ghosht wanst. 
We heard the sphook thramplin , up an' down the hall, 
fur he always wore a shurt of armor undher his white 
dhress, an' me uncle got up an' wint out, an* peerin* 
down the dark hall, sees him. 

" ' Arrah ! ' sez me uncle. 

" Sorra the word sez the ghosht. 

'* ' Are ye thaire? ' sez me uncle. 

" The ghosht stopped walkin' and screwed on his head 
like the head ov a cane. 

" * An* phwat av I am ? ' sez he. 

" * Come out o' that, thin, ye bladdherhang,' sez me 
uncle. 

" ' I won't, thin,' sez the ghosht. 

" * Ye'd betther,' sez me uncle. 

" * I hadn't thin,' sez the ghosht. 

" * Do ye know what this is, ye omadhawn ? ' sez me 
uncle, balancin his blackthorn. 

" * None o' yer chaff,' sez the ghosht. 

'* ' I wont lave a whole bone in yer carkidge,' says he. 

" * Phwat ! ' sez the ghosht. 

" * I wont ! ' sez he. 

" * Yer a liar ! ' sez he. 

" * Is it me ? ' sez he. 

•' * Show me yer head ! ' sez he. 

" * Whoop ! » sez he. 

■' * Hurroo ! " sez he. 

" Whack ! wint the black - thorn, and wid that the 
whole house was roused wid a benerin' an' roarin' that 
wud shame the bulls ov Bashan. It was me uncle, an' 
they found him out dures tied to the gate - posht wid a 
bed - cord half a mile long and knotted up that way that 
it tuk thim till after daylight to ontie him, for sorra the 
knot cud they cut. Oh, heavy heart go wid the ghosht 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 277 

that tied him out in the cowld that a - way. An* afther 
they got him untied he died." 

" Immediately ? " asked the specter. 

"Och, the divil, no; about twenty -sivin years afther. 
But this isn't tellin'me about that famous bank ov yours ? " 

"True," said the specter, "we are losing time. To 
you, who have kept sober Christmas Eve, and have 
scorned to desecrate and profane the sacred memories of 
the season " 

" Tower ov ivory ! " whispered the exile of Killatalick, 
"av that isn't purty good for an ould cut - throat ov a 
pirate ! " 

" and have shown the integrity of your moral 

being " 



"An phwat's thim, I wondher? " 

" in that you feel no fear of visitants from the 

spirit world, to you I commit gold won by dishonest 
means, but which at last reaches honest hands that will 
devote it to worthy purposes. Come with me, and do as 
I tell you." 

Crossing himself with an energy and rapidity that 
indicated a slight lack of confidence in the moral stand- 
ing of his guide, the descendant of the Muldoonerys of 
Killgobbin followed his ghostly leader down the hill-side 
into the hollow and along the course of the bewildered 
and frozen brook, until they paused before an irregular 
wall of rock, long ago cut down by the action of the 
water. As they stood before this rude wall, the specter 
turned to his companion. 

"If," he said solemnly, "you do not feel as though 
you could maintain the strictest silence, and not utter a 
word or an exclamation, no matter what wonders you 
may see, do not follow me farther. The charm which 
opens the care of my hidden wealth to your eyes, closes 



278 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

it in destruction on any violation of the spell under 
which I am held. Are you ready ? On your life now, 
do not utter a sound." 

The ghost touched the rock with his bony hand. It 
yawned like a door, and in the cavern behind the gloomy 
entrance they crept, crouching, along a narrow passage 
until the roof arched and they stood erect. An open 
chest lay at their feet; glittering jewels sparkled like 
stars in the gloom; precious stones in the mysterious 
coffer gleamed till their rays pierced the shadowy pall of 
the cavern with a pale, tremulous light. At a silent 
motion from the specter, the mortal, trembling with 
excitement and eagerness, bent down and seized the chest. 
Once, twice, thrice, he strained every muscle, and tugged 
until it seemed as though his eyes were bursting from 
their sockets, but the glittering fortune seemed immov- 
able. He set every nerve for one tremendous effort ; he 
braced his feet firmly, and once more grasped the handles 
of the coffer. It moves ! The ransom of an empire is 
his! 

"'S'matter 'ith you fellers? Hie! Watchu doin'? 
Hey?" 

The blinding light, and the deafening crash that fol- 
lowed, lasted scarce the duration of the lightning's flash, 
and all was darkness and silence. When the gray light of 
morning quenched the beams of the paling stars, the exile 
woke to consciousness to find himself lying outside the 
spell-bound cavern, with the unbroken rock looming cold 
and pitiless beside him, and his dream of wealth was gone. 
A faint odor of stale whisky kissed the wintry zephyrs, 
and a shattered bottle in the near distance lay like a 
mournful memory of his happy dreams. When the 
unhappy man's friends discovered him, they took in all 
the conditions of the cheerless bivouac, and when in the 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 



279 



cozy surroundings of his home he told his marvelous 
narrative, they were skeptical enough to declare that 
they believed all the story about the ghost and the 
cavern and the money chest was only the inspiration of 
that bottle before it was broken, and that the exile of 
Killgobbin saw the light and heard the crash when he 
staggered over the edge of the wall and broke his head. 
But he still believes that if the young fellow who went 
into camp on the hillside at the opening of this story had 
not finished his sleep and broke in upon them in such an 
untimely manner, he would never again have done a 
harder day's work than cutting off coupons from govern- 
ment bonds. 

The rest of us know that this is true. And if any 
young man doubts the truth of this veracious chronicle, 
he can easily verify its statements by keeping sober next 
Christmas Eve, and patrolling the quiet streets until he 
meets the ghost. And if he doesn't see the specter, he 
will at least enjoy the singular sensation of going home 
sober Christmas Eve, a thing of much greater rarity and 
wonder to most of "the boys" than an interview with a 
Moneyed Ghost. 



-8o RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MIDDLERIB'S PICNIC. 



"TT isn't age that makes people grow old," Mr. Middle- 
1 rib remarked to his family as they were gathered at 
the breakfast table. " It is incessant application ; it is 
unending, incessant work and worry. The mind, the 
body, all the faculties, mental and physical, are kept on 
the alert without rest or recreation, until outraged nature 
rises in rebellion against the slavery to which it is sub- 
jected, and deluded man, with all the aches and tremor 
of- senility in his young joints, awakes to find that he 
has lived his three score years and ten in half his allotted 
number of days." And with this sage remark Mr. Mid- 
dlerib leaned back in his chair and regarded his family 
with the air of a man who has just imparted a volume of 
information that would stagger the average comprehen- 
sion. 

" That's what ailed these spring chickens, I reckon," 
suggested Master Middlerib, struggling with a wing that 
was supplied with the latest improved fish-plate joints ; 
" wore themselves out trying to lay ten years' eggs in 
five." 

Mr. Middlerib gazed at the boy in a meaning manner, 
and the young gentleman immediately elevated one of 
his elbows until it was as high as his head, and held his 
guard up while he warily regarded his parent's disen- 
gaged hand. But the usual consequences did not fol- 
low, and Mr. Middlerib proceeded to announce that he 
would shake off the sordid cares of business, and free 




MIDDLERIB'S PICNIC, 



AN15 OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 283 

himself from the shackles of commercial servitude, and 
enjoy a picnic with his family and a few chosen friends. 
And immediately upon this, the family loosed their 
tongues and talked all together, and as loud and fast as 
possible for twenty -five minutes. Then, Mr. Middlerib, 
smiling benignly upon the scene of pleasure which his 
announcement had created, went off to his office. When 
he returned, Miss Middlerib had a list made out of the 
people they would invite. It embraced one hundred and 
fifteen names, not including alternates, and Mr. Middle- 
rib's jaw fell as he gazed at the catalogue. 

. " Daughter, dear," he remarked, as soon as he could 
command his feelings, " do you take me for Calvary Mis- 
sion Sunday-school, that you have included the census 
of this city in our picnic ? " 

Then explanations were demanded, and it appeared 
that Mr. Middlerib's idea had been to take a couple of 
big wagons, furnished with temporary seats, and have a 
decidedly rustic, old-fashioned picnic, of an exclusively 
family nature. And Miss Middlerib sat down and blotted 
out an even hundred names with tears, after which Mr. 
Middlerib gazed upon the revised and corrected list, ex- 
punged edition, and pronounced it good. Then they 
fixed upon the day, which was settled after much wran- 
gling and profound discussion. Mr. M. went out and 
looked at the sky, and noted the direction of the wind, 
and watched the movements of the chimney swallows 
with a critical and scientific eye, and came in and 
announced that it would not rain for five days, and they 
would have the picnic just two days before the rain. 
And from the hour of that announcement the Middlerib 
family and their invited relations did nothing but bake, 
and roast, and stew, and iron clothes, and declare they 

were tired to death and would be glad when it was all 
11* 



284 

over and done with. It is a somewhat remarkable fact 
that all people who make up their minds to go to a pic- 
nic, always do say that they will be glad when it is over, 
and act as though they were going merely as an act of 
self-denial and a mortification of the flesh. 

But when the day finally rolled around, as days 
will roll, the excitement was at its height. The sun 
struggled to his place at the usual hour, as soon as he 
was called, and his broad, red face had a terribly wild 
and dissipated look as he glared through the bank of 
clouds that curtained his getting up place, as though he 
had been tearing around all night, and had never had his 
boots off, and had only got up to collar the water pitcher. 
No wonder the whole party lost confidence in such a sun 
the moment they looked at him. He looked too much 
like a prodigal sun, just before he got starved into re- 
form, rather than a smiling, cheery picnic sun. And the 
Middleribs took turns going out singly and in small 
groups to look at him, and revile his unpromising appear- 
ance, and after each observation they would return to the 
house and ask each other in tones somewhat tinged with 
a tender melancholy, " Well, what do you think of it ? * 
And the questioned one would stifle a sigh and reply " I 
don't know, do you ? * 

There is no scene in all this wide world of pathos more 
pathetic than a group of anxious mortals, on the morn of 
a picnic, trying to delude each other into the belief that 
when the sky is covered with heavy black clouds, 800 
feet thick, and a damp scud is driving through the air, 
and the sun is only half visible occasionally through a 
thin cloud that is waiting to be patched up to the stand- 
ard thickness and density, it is going to be a very fine 
day indeed. So the Middleribs looked at the coppery 
old sun, and the dismal clouds, and tried to look cheer- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 285 

ful, and said encouragingly that " Oh, it never rained 
when the clouds came up that way ;" and, " See, it is all 
clear over in the east;" and, " It often rains very heavily 
in town when there doesn't a drop of water fall at Pros- 
pect Hill." And thus, with many encouraging remarks 
of similar import, they awaited the gathering of the party, 
and the human beings finally climbed into one wagon, 
put the baskets and . the boys in the other, and drove 
away, giggling and howling with well dissembled glee. 

The happy party, although they well knew that it 
would not rain, had taken the precaution nevertheless to 
take a large assortment of shawls and umbrellas. They 
were a quarter of a mile from town when it began to 
thunder some, but as it didn't thunder in the direction 
of PrOspect Hill, distant some three miles, they went on, 
confident that it wasn't raining, and wouldn't, and couldn't 
rain at Prospect Hill. They were half a mile from town 
when the cloud that all the rest of the clouds had been 
waiting for came up and remorselessly sat down on the last, 
solitary lingering patch of blue that broke the monotony of 
the leaden sky, but the party pressed on, confident that 
they would find blue sky when they got to Prospect Hill. 
They were a mile from town when old Aquarius pulled 
the bottom out of the rain wagon and began the enter- 
tainment. It was a grand success. The curtain hadn't 
been up ten minutes before all the standing room in the 
house was taken up and the box office was closed. The 
Middlerib party having gone early, and secured front 
seats, were able to see everything. They expressed their 
pleasure by loud shrieks, and howls, and wails. They 
tore umbrellas, that had been furtively placed in the 
wagon, out of their lurking places, and shot them up 
with such abruptness that the hats in the wagon were 
knocked out into the road. Then the wagon stopped and 



286 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

people crawled out and waded around after hats, and 
came piling back into the wagon, with their feet loaded 
with mud. The umbrellas got into each other's way, and 
from the points of the ribs streams of dirty water trickled 
down shuddering backs, and stained immaculate dresses, 
and took the independence out of glossy shirt fronts. 
And the picnic party turned homeward, but still the 
Middleribs did not lose heart. They smiled through 
their tears, and Miss Middlerib, beautiful in her grief, 
still advocated going on and having the picnic in a 
barn, and wept when they refused her. It rained harder 
every rod of the way back. Then when they got every- 
body and every thing into the house, the heart-rending 
discovery was made that the boys had taken the rubber 
blanket which was to have covered the baskets in case 
of rain, and spread it over themselves when the moisture 
gathered, and consequently the edibles were in a state of 
dampness. 

Then the clouds broke, and the sun came out, and 
smiling nature stood around looking as pleasant as 
though it had never played a mean trick on a happy 
picnic party in its life; and the Middleribs hung 
themselves out in the sun to dry, and tried to play croquet 
in the wet grass, and kept up their spirits as well as they 
knew how, and were not cross if they did get wet. If 
smiling nature had only given them a show, or even half 
a chance, they would have got along all right. They 
were bound to have the picnic party anyhow, so they 
kept all the relations at the house, and when dinner time 
came, the grass was dry and they set the table out under 
the trees and made it look as picmcky as possible. It 
clouded up a little when they were setting the table, 
but nobody thought it looked very threatening. The 
soaked things had been dried as carefully as possible. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 287 

and the table looked beautiful when they gathered around 
it. And just about the time they got their plates rilled 
and declared that they were glad they came back, and 
that this was ever so much better than Prospect Hill, a 
forty acre cloud came and stood right over the table, and 
then and there went all to pieces. 

That was what spoiled the picnic. 

The pleasure-seekers grabbed whatever they could 
reach and broke for the house, uttering wild shrieks of 
dismay. They crowded into the hall, which wasn't half 
big enough, and there they stood on each other's trains, 
and trod on each other's corns, and poured coffee down 
each other's backs, and jabbed forks into one another's 
arms. When one frantic looking woman would rush in 
and set a plate of cake down on the floor while she dived 
out into the rain with a woman's anxiety to recover some 
more provisions from the dripping wreck, a forlorn looking 
man would immediately step on that plate of cake, and 
stand there gazing wonderingly and apprehensively at the 
shrieking crowd around him, pointing their forks and 
fingers at him and at his feet, and yelling, in a deafening 
chorus, something as utterly unintelligible as " shouting 
proverbs." And when the man, in a vain effort to do 
something in compliance with the shrieking which was 
evidently intended for him, stepped off the cake and stood 
in a huge dish of baked beans for a change, the wail of 
consternation that went up from the congregation fairly 
rent the bending skies. And when Uncle Steve, who had 
found Aunt Carrie's baby out under the deserted table, 
maintaining an unequal struggle with half of a huckle- 
berry pie and a whole thunder-storm, came tearing in 
with the hapless infant, and, dashing through the crowd, 
deposited it on top of a pile of hard-boiled eggs, Miss 
Middlerib fainted, and the youngest gentleman cousin 



w 



288 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

was driven into a spasm of jealousy because he couldn't 

walk over a row of cold meats and lobster salad to get 

to her, and had to endure the misery of seeing the oldest 

and ugliest bachelor uncle carry her drooping form to a 

sofa, and lay her down tenderly, with her classic head in 

a nest of cream tarts and her dainty feet on Sadie's 

Jenny Lind cake. And when Mrs. Middlerib looked out 

of the window, and saw the dog Heedle with his fore 

paws in the lemonade bucket, growling at Cousin John, 

who was trying to drive him out of it, she expressed a 

willingness to die right there. And when they were 

startled by some unearthly sounds and muffled shrieks, 

that even rose above the human babel in the hall, and 

found that the cat had got its poor head jammed tighter 

than wax in the mouth of the jar that contained the 

cream, everybody just sat on the plate of things nearest 

him, and gasped, " What next ? " while Cousin David 

lifted cat and jar by the tail of the former, and carried 

them out to be broken apart. And when old Mr. Rubel- 

kins lost his teeth in the coffee pot, half the people in 

the hall began to lose heart, and one discouraged young 

cousin said he half wished that they had put the picnic 

off a day. And finally, when the uproar was at its 

height, the door-bell rang, and the aunt nearest the door 

opened it, and there stood the Hon. Mrs. J. C. P. R. Le 

Von Blatheringford and her daughter, the richest and 

most stylish people in the neighborhood, arrayed like 

fashion-plates, making their first formal call. While they 

stood gazing in mute bewilderment at the scene of ruin 

and devastation and chaos before them, Mrs. Middlerib 

just got behind the door and pounded her head against 

the wall ; while Miss Middlerib, springing from her sofa, 

ran to her room, leaving a trail of Jenny Lind cake and 

cream tarts behind her, as the fragments dropped from 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 289 

her back hair and heels. And the rest of the company, 
staring at the guests with their mouths full of assorted 
provisions, and their hearts full of bitter disappointment, 
mumbled, in hospitable chorus, "Wup pin," which, had 
their mouths been empty, would have been rendered, 
"Walk in." 

This blow settled the picnic. Gloom hung over the 
house the rest of the day. Mr. Middlerib decided, after 
the company had departed, that the easiest and cheapest 
way to clean the hall would be to turn the river through 
it. And that night, when they were assembled at a com- 
fortless tea table — Master Middlerib having been sent to 
bed so sick that they didn't think his toe-nails would be 
able to hold down till morning — Mr. Middlerib said : 

" It isn't the steady, honest, ambitious devotion to 
business that makes men old. Labor is a law of our 
nature. We are happiest and most content when we are 
busiest. It is the healthful labor of the day that brings 
the sweet, refreshing repose of the night. Pleasure flies 
us when we seek her ; she comes to us when we least 
regard her calls. Remember what I. have always said, 
and find your pleasure in your daily work — in the regular 
routine of daily life, and its duties and useful avocations 
— and age will only come upon you slowly, and youth 
will linger in your hearts and on your faces long years 
after the allotted days of youth are past. The next time 
you want to have a picnic, remember how often I have 
warned you against them." 



290 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MASTER BILDERBACK'S POULTRY YARD. 



IF there was anything she abominated more than one 
thing, Mrs. Bilderback used to say with some warmth, 
it was another, and that was chickens. And she reso- 
lutely protested against keeping any of them about the 
place. She wanted to keep a few flowers this year, and she 
wasn't going to be mortified again as she was last Summer, 
by having every woman who called at that house smile 
at the forest of bare stalks and scraggy branches that 
stood for the collection of house plants that she and her 
daughter tried to raise for ornaments to the place, but 
which were really of no use except to fill the crops of a 
lot of long-legged, hungry chickens. And for a long 
time the good lady held out stoutly against the chicken 
proposition, but was at last over- argued and over-per- 
suaded and gave her unwilling consent for Master Bil- 
derback to keep three dozen chickens, the party of the 
second part binding himself to keep the table supplied 
with fresh eggs and spring chickens, and to keep all hens, 
roosters, and all young chickens of unknown sex, but of 
sufficient physical development to scratch, out of the 
front yard and away from the flower beds. This con- 
tract Master Bilderback placed himself under heavy 
bonds to carry out, by saying, " honest injun," " pon 
nonnor," and " 'cross my heart," and having solemnly 
repeated this awful and impressive formula, he went 
sedately out of the room and immediately threw himself 
down on a verbena bed, where he pounded the ground 
with his heels in the ecstasy of his joy. In due time the 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 29 1 

new hen-house was completed, and Mr. Bilderback, 
breathing maledictions on the wretches who pulled the 
pickets off his front fence for kindling wood, had that 
important boundary repaired before he noticed that the 
apertures in the fence corresponded to certain neat look- 
ing improvements on the hennery. The house was 
stocked rather slowly, for it was part of the contract 
which Mrs. Bilderback had drawn that the party of the 
second part should purchase his own stock. It was 
noticeable that Master Bilderback 's taste ran greatly 
toward gamey looking roosters, and as the perches in 
the hennery became more and more populated, the out- 
look for fresh eggs and spring chickens became very dis- 
couraging indeed. The first fowl the poulterer brought 
home was a gaunt Hamburg with one eye and a game 
leg, but beautifully spangled, which interesting bird, Mas- 
ter Bilderback informed his sister, was the worst pill in 
the box and had lost his eye while fighting a cow. The 
next day he traded a pocketful of marbles for a little 
bantam that crowed twenty - four hours a day, could slip 
through a season crack in a warped board, and could dig 
a hole in the middle of a flower bed that you could bury 
a calf in. There wasn't a moment's silence about the 
house after the bantam's arrival, for when he was not 
fighting the Hamburg, which was only when that valiant 
but prudent bird got up on top of the house and hid 
behind a chimney, he was wandering through the house 
trying his voice in the different rooms, or standing on the 
front porch issuing proclamations of defiance to all roos- 
ters to whom these presents might come, greeting. A 
day or two after the bantam's arrival Master Bilderback 
traded his knife for a Black Spanish rooster with a broken 
wing. The Spaniard when put in the coop proceeded at 
once to clean out the disheartened Hamburg, who fought 



292 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

on the tactics which had so often proved of so great 
value to him, and amazed his furious antagonist by the 
briskness with which he got out of the coop, up on to the 
barn, and perched himself on the restless and uncertain 
weather-cock. The Spaniard and the bantam then had 
it until neither of them could stand, when the pacific 
Hamburg improved the opportunity to come down and 
partake of the first square meal he had eaten since the 
new boarders had come to the house. Two days later, 
Master Bilderback brought home a vile looking white 
rooster with no tail feathers, his comb shaved off close 
to the head, and spurs as long as your thumb, a vile ple- 
beian of a rooster without a line of pedigree, of no partic- 
ular strain, except a strain that made his very eyes turn 
red when he growled, which he had bought for an 
old base ball club. But the nameless stranger amazed 
the proprietor of the hennery by waltzing into the estab- 
lishment with a terrific rooster oath, and following it up 
by kicking the bantam clear out of his mind, jerking the 
wattles off the Spaniard, and chasing the persecuted 
Hamburg half way up the side of the house. This was 
the last addition made to the happy family for some time, 
Mr. Bilderback declaring that he was not going to have 
his premises turned into a cock -pit, and Master Bilder- 
back was sternly forbidden to arrange any more meetings 
in the alley, with other boys and their birds. But a few 
days afterward, when Master Bilderback came home from 
school, it was evident that he had made a trade. He 
had some other boy's shabby old hat on his head, and 
there wasn't a lead pencil, piece of string, pistol cartridge, 
top, fish - hook, chalk line, marble, dime novel, or street 
car ticket in his pockets, and he had a new rooster, the 
crowning glory of the vast collection of fowls that were 
to furnish forth his mother's table with fresh eggs and 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 293 

spring chickens. It was a Shanghai; young one, Master 
Bilderback said, as he prepared to untie its legs and 
wings and introduce it to its new home ; hadn't got his 
growth yet, but he was "a buster." And Mrs. Bilder- 
back thought he was. When he was untied he stood up 
and flapped one of his wings in his proprietor's face, 
until that young gentleman was ready to "cross his 
heart," that somebody had hit him with a clapboard. 
And before he had recovered from the effects of this 
blow the noble bird kicked him under the chin and darted 
off toward the front yard, with prodigious strides. He 
uttered a most awful croak as he neared Mrs. Bilder- 
back, who was trying to get out of his way, and in a vain 
attempt to fly over her, he struck her on the head, just 
abaft her ear with his heel, gently dropping her ; " grassed 
the old lady," Master Bilderback afterward explained to 
his sister, "like a shot." The wretched bird paused as 
he passed the sitting-room window, which was just about 
on a level with his head when he stooped, to look in and 
make some unintelligible remark in a guttural tone of 
language, and snatching up a new tidy that Miss Bilder- 
back was at work upon, swallowed it and passed on. 
Wherever he trod, he smashed a house plant, and when- 
ever he croaked, he threw somebody into a fit. He met 
Mr. Bilderback as he suddenly turned the corner of the 
house, ran against the old gentleman with a wild kind of 
a crow that sounded like a steamboat whistle with a bad 
cold, and as he trampled over that good man's prostrate 
form, he plucked off his neck -tie and swallowed it. 
Then the " buster " wheeled around and straddled into 
the sitting-room window, and before they could head 
him out of the house he swallowed two spools of cotton, 
a tack hammer, a set of false teeth belonging to Mrs. 
Bilderback, a cake of toilet soap, a shoe buttoner, a ball 



294 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

of yarn, an arctic overshoe, and finally choked on a pho- 
tograph album which flew open when it was about half 
way down. The bird when last heard from was still at 
large roaming around South Hill, but Master Bilderback's 
hennery is empty and lonesome, because his parents are, 
from some unaccountable reason, bitterly prejudiced 
against keeping chickens. 



A SUNDAY IDYL. 



YOU see, the tenor had got kind of abstracted, or 
restless, or something during the long prayer, and 
was thinking about the European war, or the wheat 
corner last week, or something, and so when the minister 
gave out hymn 231, on page 67, and the chorister whis- 
pered them to sing the music on page 117, it all came in 
on the tenor like a volley, and as he had only the play- 
ing of the symphony in which to make the necessary 
combination of time, hymn and page, he came to the 
front just a little bit disorganized, and his fingers stick- 
ing between every leaf in the book. And the choir 
hadn't faced the footlights half a minute before the con- 
gregation more than half suspected something was wrong. 
For you see, the soprano, in attempting to answer the 
frenzied whisper of the tenor in regard to the page, lost 
the first two or three words of the opening line herself, 
and that left the alto to start off alone, for the basso was 
so profoundly engaged in watching the tenor and wonder- 
ing what ailed him, that he forgot to sing. The music 
wasn't written for an alto solo, and consequently there 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 295 

wasn't very much variety to that part, and after singing 
nearly through the first line alone, and receiving neither 
applause nor bouquets for one of the finest contralto 
efforts a Burlington or any other audience ever listened 
to, the alto stopped and looked reproachfully at the 
soprano, who had just plunged the tenor's soul into a 
gulf of dark despair by leaving him to find his way out 
of the labyrinth of tunes and pages and hymns into 
which his own heedlessness had led him, by giving him 
a frantic shake of her head, which unsettled the new 
spring bonnet (just the sweetest duck of a Normandy), 
to that extent that every woman in the congregation 
noticed it. All this time the organist was doing nobly, 
and the alto, recovering her spirits, sang another bar, 
which, for sweetness and tenacious adherence to the 
same note, all the way through, couldn't be beat in 
America. By this time the bass had risen to the emer- 
gency and sang two deep guttural notes, with profound 
expression, but as those of the congregation sitting near- 
est the choir could distinctly hear him sing " Ho, ho ! " to 
the proper music, it was painfully evident that the basso 
had the correct tune, but was running wild on the words. 
At this point the soprano got her time and started off 
with a couple of confident notes, high and clear as a 
bird song, and the congregation, inspired with an over- 
ready confidence, broke out on the last word of the 
verse with a discordant roar that rattled the globes on 
the big chandelier, and as the verse closed with this 
triumphant outbreak, an expression of calm, restful sat- 
isfaction was observed to steal over the top of the pas- 
tor's head, which was all that could be seen of him, as 
he bowed himself behind the pulpit. 

The organist played an intricate and beautiful inter- 
lude without a tremor or a false note ; not an uncertain 



296 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

touch to indicate that there was a particle of excitement 
in the choir, or that anything had gone wrong. 

The choir didn't exactly appear to catch the organist's 
reassuring steadiness, for the basso led off the second 
verse by himself, and his deep-toned " Ho, ho ! " was so 
perceptible throughout the sanctuary that several people 
started, and looked down under the seats for a man, and 
one irreverent sinner, near the door, thrust a felt hat 
into his mouth and slid out. The soprano got orders 
and started out only three or four words behind time, 
but she hadn't reached the first siding before she col- 
lided with a woman in the audience, running wild and 
trying to carry a new tune to the old words. And then, 
to make it worse, the soprano handed her book to the 
tenor, and pointed him to the tune on page 117 and the 
words on page 67, and if that unhappy man didn't get 
his orders mixed, and struck out on schedule time, with 
the tune on page 67 and the words on page 117, and in 
less than ten words ditched himself so badly that he was 
laid out for the rest of the verse, and then he lost his 
place, handed the book back to the soprano, took the one 
she had, and held it upside down, and no living man 
could tell from his face what he was thinking of or try- 
ing to say. Meanwhile the soprano, when the books 
were so abruptly changed on her, did just what might 
have been expected, and telescoped two tunes and sets 
of words into each other with disastrous effect. The 
alto was running smoothly along, passenger time, for the 
several wrecks gave her the track, so far as it was clear, 
all to herself. The basso, who had slipped an eccentric 
and was only working one side, was rumbling cautiously 
along, clear off his own time, flagging himself every mile 
of the way, and asking for orders every time he got a 
chance. The pastor's head was observed to tremble 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 297 

with emotion, and the people sitting nearest the pulpit 
say they could indistinctly hear sounds from behind it 
that resembled the syllables " Te, he ! " As the organist 
pulled and crowded and encouraged them along toward 
the closing line, it looked as though public confidence 
might soon be restored and the panic abated, but alas, 
as even the demoralized tenor rallied, and came in with 
the full quartette on the last line, a misguided man in 
the audience suddenly thought he recognized in the dis- 
tracted tune an old, familiar acquaintance, and broke 
out in a joyous howl on something entirely different that 
inspired every singing man and woman in the congrega- 
tion with the same idea, and the hymn was finished in a 
terrific discord of sixty-nine different tunes, and the rent 
and mangled melody flapped and fluttered around the 
sacred edifice like a new kind of delirium tremens, and 
all the wrecking cars on the line were started for the 
scene at once. 

The pastor deserves more praise than can be crowded 
into these pages for pronouncing the benediction in 
clear, even tones, without even the ghost of a smile on 
his placid countenance. 



298 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



RUPERTINO'S PANORAMA. 



OUR first view is leaving New York harbor. This is 
a beautiful picture. See the mighty vessel, 
spreading her snowy wings to the gale, glide through the 
water like a thing of life. There is nothing to hinder 
her, and nothing in that fact to make a fuss about. But 
if the water was to glide through her, it would be time 
for reflection on the brevity of one's life insurance policy. 
The noble ship is freighted with precious human souls, 
bright hopes, happy anticipations, hides, salt meat and 
highwines. 

This is a view of the Bourse in Paris, a twin institution 
to the Burlington Board of Trade. The man in the 
background, trying to hang himself on a lamp-post, is a 
member of the Bourse. He has just been Boursted. He 
has been operating in corn. If you will hold a bottle or 
small tumbler to your mouth and look steadily at this 
picture, you will see how they usually operate in corn at 
the Exchanges. 

This is a view in Egypt. The great city of Cairo. It 
is named after Cairo, Illinois. Cairo is on the river 
Nile. Cairo never struck ile that we know of, but we do 
know that Cairo seen Nile. We do not know, history 
does not tell us, what there was so important in this 
event, but we know it is commemorated by monuments 
erected all over America. You can't go into a cemetery 
in the United States without seeing one or more monu- 
ments erected to the memory of Cairo C. Nile. He was 
probably the inventor of a cooking- stove, as some refer- 
ence is usually made to the kitchen fire. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS 299 

This is a view of the Seine. This is the favorite place 
for the Parisians to shuffle off their mortal coil. The 
volatile Frenchman gets himself full of elan (you know 
what that is) and jumps off one of these arched bridges, 
the Pont Noof or the Pont de Jena, down by the Shong 
de Mar. The zhong darmay, which is French for river 
police, fishes the victim out ; the coroner pronounces 
him incurably inseine, his property is confiscated, and 
his insurance policy declared void, so as to spoil his wife's 
chances of marrying again. Such is the grasp of an iron 
despotism upon the wretched slaves of down-trodden 
Europe. (Applause.) 

Here is a view in London of the old Bucking'em pal- 
ace. This is an exterior view. Inside there are several 
keno banks, some chuckaluck tables and a faro bank, 
and the nobility are in there bucking the tiger. King 
Richard came out of that palace once, cleaned out, after 
a run of bad luck. He remarked to a friend, " So much 
for bucking em." * The quotation has passed into history. 

A panoramic view of Scotland. The gentleman in the 
peculiar position in the foreground is scratching his back 
against a mile post and remarking, " God bless the gude 
Duke of Argyle." The children in Scotland are taught 
that the Duke of Argyle made the world. This is an 
error. 

We stand among the antiquities of Rome — Rome that 
stood on her seven hills, like James Robinson in his 
famous eight-horse bareback act. This is Trajan's Col- 
umn — his spinal column. This is the Arch of Titus. 
When he put up that arch he was Titus a brick. This is 
the place where the Roman mobs used to collect and the 
police Went Forum. Here is the Coliseum. There is 
the bloody sand of the arena; there is the spot where 

" the dying gladiator" lied. "I see before me the dying 
12 



3<DO RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

gladiator lie." Some calm and temperate Roman ought 
to have cast the scoundrel's lies in his teeth. The Ro- 
mans were very depraved, wicked people, and the entire 
civilized world yet suffers from the effects of their mali- 
cious iniquity. They invented the Latin grammar, 
Nepos, Cicero and Virgil, and hurled upon the boys of 
succeeding ages a language containing ten rules to every 
word, and twenty exceptions to every rule. This is a 
statue of a noble Roman, Julius Caesar. He was named 
after the Fourth of July and President Grant. 

We stand in Greece. " The isles of Greece ! The 
isles of Greece ! " Probably the poet referred to goose 
grease. The Greeks were an ancient people. They 
wrote their letters in cipher, and schoolboys of to-day 
sigh for hours over their letters. Here are the ruins of 
the temple of Jupiter O'Lympus, erected to him by the 
ancient Greeks, thus proving that the Irish nation sprang 
from these ancient heroes. Here is an ancient theater. 
It is closed now for repairs ; has been closed for a few 
thousand years, and the actors have gone off to their 
Summer resort, at Hades on the Styx. 

Behold buried Pompeii. The city was entombed in 
an eruption that hadn't been equaled sine 3 Job got well. 
The gentleman in a military position at the gate, dressed 
in a full suit of bones, is not only a charming specimen 
of anatomy, but was a brave sentinel, who was covered 
up with ashes before he could run. He would have been 
1,795 Y ears °ld tj-morrow if he had run and kept on 
living. It appears, however, that he is dead. The fact 
is not substantiated by any direct evidence, as no wit- 
nesses can be found who saw him die, and his will, 
therefore, has not been probated. But it is generally 
believed that he is dead. Weep not for him, friends. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 301 

He was a heathen, and has gone to a place where he is 
probably used to volcanoes by this time. 

This building, the venerable pile that rises before you, 
is 27,000 years old. It originally cost $850, and took ten 
men nearly all Summer to build it. It was whitewashed 
nearly 4,000 years ago, but received no later repairs. 
The room on the right as you enter the hall on the first 
floor, is the Torture Room. It is called the County 
Treasurer's office, and is where people go and mortgage 
their farms and homes for taxes. The room opposite is 
the County Insane Asylum. The juries are confined 
there while on duty, and the local debating societies also 
meet there. This court-house was built many ages before 
Burlington was settled. The massive walls are engraved 
with the names of eminent men who have served on the 
juries. A grim and imposing antiquity frowns upon us 
as we enter the Judgment Hall up stairs. The benches 
and desks are made of wood taken from the decks of the 
ark. The tobacco quids in the corners were piled there 
so long ago that people had not begun to remember any- 
thing. The wood-box is a pre-Adamic creation. It is 
modeled after the megatherium. The only man living 
who knows any thing about the early history of the court- 
house is dead. 



302 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MIDDLERIB'S DOG. 



MR. MIDDLERIB used to be a devoted dog fancier. 
About three years ago he owned a beautiful hound 
pup about five months old. It was considered an orna- 
ment to the neighborhood. A hound pup at that age is 
an object of surprising beauty, under any circumstances; 
but when you consider that Mr. Middlerib had raised his 
pup on scientific principles (boiled beef and rice), you 
can readily imagine what a canine divinity it was. Gaunt 
legs, longer than your grandfathers stories, and the hind 
ones so crooked that the dog sticks his foot into every- 
thing in the yard every time he tries to scratch his ear ; 
sides look as though he had swallowed an old hoopskirt, 
and the springs showed through ; more ribs under his 
hide than there are spots on it ; tail as long as the dog, 
and two inches across the big end and tapering down 
like a marlinspike, so lean you can count every joint in 
it, and so hard that you couldn't scratch it with a dia- 
mond — has every appearance of having been made ten 
years before the dog was, and then hung out to bleach in 
the rain and dry in the sun until the dog came along ; 
ears soft as a kid glove, and about the size and appear- 
ance of a blacksmith's apron — bear every evidence of 
being considered by all other dogs in the precinct as 
dreadful nice things to chew. Beautiful eyes; open 
twenty -three hours and fifty - nine minutes of the day; 
scare every woman into fits that looks into the back yard 
after dark. Sweet mouth, opens on a hinge at the back 
of his head, and is never shut unless there is something 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 303 

in it. That's the best picture of a growing hound, one 
of this kind with liver colored spots, that we can draw, 
and Mr. Middlerib's was just like that, only more so. 
His principal characteristic was a tendency to lunch. 
He was fond of nibbling little things around the house. 
Split his face one Sunday while the folks were at church, 
and shut it down over a whole ham. Liked to peck at 
odd bones and scraps, and one Monday morning he ate 
two tablecloths, a flannel shirt, a big roller towel, half a 
dozen clothes pins and thirteen linear yards of clothes 
line, before the washing had been hung out half an hour. 
Fond of eggs, too, and knows every hen by sight in the 
neighborhood, and sets off on a friendly call every time 
he hears a cackle. Mrs. M. wants to sell him, but 
Middlerib says gold couldn't buy him. So he stays, and 
eggs are as scarce in that ward as ever. 

Well, one night, Mrs. M. had made something by 
pulverizing a lot of very hot potatoes. We believe it was 
yeast. Any how, it was necessary that it should cool 
very presently, and after some misgivings relative to the 
dog and his weakness, which were dispelled by Middle- 
rib's indignant defense of that sagacious animal, the dish 
containing the fiery compound was placed on the outer 
edge of a window sill, to cool in the night air. 

Then the family resumed their occupation of hearing 
Middlerib explain the causes that led to the recent 
revolution in politics. 

Such a weird, unearthly, piercing wail hadn't been 
heard since Dresseldorf learned to play the clarionet. 
It seemed to come out of the ground, out of the sky, out 
of the air around them, and for an instant the frightened 
Middleribs gazed at each other with white, terror-blanched 
faces. Then they rushed to the door and looked out. A 
gaunt, ghostly form, with liver colored spots and a mouth 



304 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

full of red hot potato yeast thrashed wildly up and down 
the yard, splitting the darkness with terrific yells at every 
jump. It was Middlerib's dog, and it was apparently 
feeling uneasy. It dashed madly around in short circles 
and screamed " Police," and scraped its jaws with its 
paws, and wept and rubbed its chops along the cold 
ground, and swore and howled for water, and pawed the 
earth and sang psalms, and in several ways expressed 
its disapprobation of potato yeast as a diet. Finally, the 
dog wedged himself in between the fence and the ash- 
barrel, and told all about it, how it happened and what 
it felt like, and how he liked it as far as he'd got. He 
never slept a wink that night. He was too anxious to 
get his narrative completed and see the proofs of it. 
Neither did anybody in the neighborhood sleep, either. 
And every time a water pitcher would crash down into 
the yard, or a boot -jack bang against the fence or an 
andiron plunge madly into the ash - barrel, the dog would 
laugh in mocking tones, and go on with his testimony. 
About midnight a vigilance committee waited on Mr. 
Middlerib, but he wouldn't come out, and they couldn't 
stand the noise long enough to break in the door. The 
dog finished his statement about sunrise, when the com- 
mittee rose. The family ate baker's bread. the next day, 
and Middlerib so far yielded to Mrs. M.'s entreaties as 
to say that if any man will make a fair offer, he might sell 
an undivided third of the dog. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 30* 



A BOY'S DAY AT HOME. 



MASTER BILDERBACK had been home all day, 
confined to the house and barn by the rain, and 
excited by the prospect of unlimited fun during the long 
vacation. He was a blessing to his mother and sister, 
and his affectionate parent caught her death of cold by 
running around after him in one stocking foot, searching 
out the tender places in his nature and anatomy with a 
four and a half slipper. He tied one end of his sister's 
ball of crochet cotton to the fly - wheel of the sewing- 
machine and the other around the tail of the cat, and by 
the time his mother had sewed half way down one of the 
long seams in Mr. Bilderback' s new shirt, all but a few 
yards of that cotton was a chaotic mass about that fly- 
wheel and shaft, and the cat was waltzing in and out of 
the kitchen, sprawling along backward, tail straight as a 
poker, fur up and eyes aflame, snowling, and spitting, and 
swearing like mad, and Mrs. Bilderback and her daughter 
climbed upon the table and shrieked till the windows 
rattled, while Master Bilderback, hid behind the clothes- 
horse in the kitchen, lay down on his back and laughed a 
wicked gurgling kind of a laugh. Then he went out and 
jammed a potato into the nose of the chain pump and the 
hired girl went out and pumped till her arms ached clear 
down to her heels, and then told Mrs. Bilderback the 
cistern had sprung a leak and was dry as a bone. And 
then Mrs. Bilderback, declaring she knew better, went 
out and turned the wheel till her head swam and she 
gave up, and Miss Bilderback went out and turned till 



306 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

she cried, and then Master Bilderback, rather than go to 
the neighbor's for water, went out and fixed the pump and 
came in to be praised, and was duly praised with the 
slipper, for he had been watched. He put an old last 
year's fire - cracker in the kitchen stove ; he insured a 
steady run of strange visitors for about two hours, to the 
great amazement of his mother and sister, by pinning a 
placard on the porch step, plainly seen from the street, 
but invisible from the front door, " Man wanted to drive 
carriage; $35.00 a month and board." Mrs. Bilderback 
drew a sigh of relief when she heard Mr. B.'s step in the 
hall, and informed her son that as soon as his father 
came in he should be duly informed of all that had been 
going on. A most impressive silence followed this 
remark, and the trio in the sitting - room listened to 
Mr. Bilderback 's heavy breathing as he divested himself 
of his wet boots, and prepared to assume his slippers. 
Master Bilderback's face wore an expression of the deep- 
est concern. 

Suddenly the silence was broken by a shout of aston- 
ishment and terror, followed by a howl of intense agony, 
and there was a clattering as of a runaway crockery 
wagon in the hall. The affrighted family rushed to the 
door, and beheld Mr. Bilderback cleaving the shadows 
with wild gestures and frantic gyrations. " Take it off,'' 
he shouted, and made a grab at. his own foot, but, miss- 
ing it, went on with his war»- dance. " Water ! " he 
shrieked, and started up stairs, three at a step, and turn- 
ing, came back in a single stride, " Oh, I'm stabbed ! " 
he cried, and sank to the floor and held his right leg high 
above his head ; then he rose to his feet with a bound 
and screamed for the boot -jack, and held his foot out 
toward his terrified family. " Oh, bring me the arnica ! " 
he yelled, and with one despairing effort he reached his 






o 

1% 



'llf 




A BOY'S DAY AT HOME. 






AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 309 

slipper and got it off, and with a groan as deep as a well 
and hollow as a drum, sank into a chair and clasped his 
foot in both hands. " Look out for the scorpion," he 
whispered hoarsely, " I'm a dead man." 

Master Bilderback was by this time out in the wood- 
shed, rolling in the kindling in an ecstasy of glee, and 
pausing from time to time to explain to the son of a 
neighbor, who had dropped in to see if there was any 
innocent sport going on in which he could share, " Oh, 
Bill, Bill," he said, " you wouldn't believe ; some time 
to - day, some how or other, a big blue wasp got into the 
old man's slipper, and when he come home and put it on 
— oh, Bill, you don't know! " 



WHY MR. BOSTWICK MOVED. 



YOUNG Mr. Bostwick has moved. He liked the 
house he has been living in well enough, and Mrs. 
Bostwick fairly cried her eyes out when they left it, be- 
cause it had a bay window and blinds with slats that you 
could turn so that you could see anybody in the street 
and nobody could see you. But old Mr. Glasford, the 
landlord, was very deaf, and it was on account of this 
infirmity that his tenant left the house. Mrs. Bostwick 
said she couldn't see what Mr. Glasford's deafness had 
to do with the house, but her husband only looked wor- 
ried and said it made a good deal of difference with a 
man's peace of mind, when he had something he wanted 
to whisper, and had to whisper it to a man who couldn't 

hear anything if he went into a boiler factory. Mrs. 
12* 



310 RISE AND FALL OF THE MXJSTACHE, 

Bostwick didn't understand what difference it made any- 
how, but then she wasn't down town that terrible 
Wednesday, when old Mr. Glasford went into the store 
where her husband was selling a lovely young divinity 
from Denmark a dress pattern off a piece of Centennial 
percale. Mr. Bostwick saw the old gentleman coming 
and felt very nervous. Eager to anticipate the demand 
which he knew the old man was going to make, he 
dashed toward him with an abruptness that astonished 
the fair customer who had just lost herself in admiration 
of Bostwick's diamond pin, and the fact, just confidentially 
imparted to her, that he was not a clerk but the silent 
partner, holding about $475,000 worth of stock in the 
concern, and that he just worked from pure love of em- 
ployment. Mr. Bostwick checked the old gentleman 
about ten feet away from his customer, and leaning over 
the counter so as to get as close range on his ear as pos- 
sible, whispered hoarsely that "it wouldn't be convenient 
to pay that rent to -day/' 

"Hey?" shouted the old man, looking at Bostwick's 
agitated face in some alarm, "why, why, wha's the mat- 
ter? 'S happened ? " 

Mr. Bostwick made a futile effort to catch hold of the 
old man's ear, intending to pour his explanation into it 
as one pours water into a funnel, but his landlord briskly 
dodged and waved Bostwick away with an expression of 
considerable apprehension. Mr. Bostwick groaned and 
endeavored to explain to the old gentleman in a manner 
that would convey to the pretty customer and the others 
in the store the idea that he was refusing to give the old 
party credit, and at the same time let old Glasford know 
that he was bankrupt. 

" Can't do it ! " he shouted. 

"Can't do what? " inquired the mystified old gentle- 



AND OTHER HAWK- EYETEMS, 3 11 

man in those stentorian tones so popular with deaf 
people. 

" Can't help you ! " shouted Bostwick, in tones the 
sternness of which contrasted ludicrously with the 
sheepish expression of his countenance. "Can't do 
anything for you ! " 

The old man looked at Bostwick in helpless wonder 
and then at the door, with his mind half made up to run 
away, under the impression that the young man was 
crazy. He finally stared at him in open-mouthed amaze- 
ment and speechless bewilderment. 

"Oh, Moses," thought Bostwick, "he's mad as a 
hornet, he'll break oat in a minute; I know he will.*' 
Then he tried him again, in a voice like a steam whistle. 

"I can't do anything for you! " 

The old man's mouth opened still wider, and his eyes 
stood around on his cheek bones in their amazement. 

" Who asked ye to do anything for me ? " he finally 
gasped. " What is it ye can't do? " 

Bostwick groaned, and in a fit of desperation he broke 
down, and gave it up. 

" I can't pay that rent to - day ! " he shrieked, and the 
pretty customer was so shocked that she dropped her 
parasol, fan and paper of gum drops. 

"What went to-day?" asked the old man, waving 
Bostwick off with his stick. 

Here the proprietor officiously interposed to cover 
Bostwick's confusion, speaking in the highest key he 
could assume. 

" Rent ! Rent ! House rent, you know ! He says he 
can't pay his house rent to-day ! " 

" Rent day ? " echoed old Glasford, " yes, oh yes, that's 
past, two weeks ago; first of the month." 

v Yes," shrieked Mr. Bostwick, while the store full of 



312 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

customers and his fellow clerks stood around and smiled, 
"I know it, but I can't pay it to-day; haven't got a 
cent!" 

" Oh! " exclaimed the old man, with a gleam of intel- 
ligence passing over his face, " I don't care about that ; 
that isn't what I come for. I come to tell you if your 
wife wanted that front room down stairs papered, to go 
ahead and have it done, and I'd allow it." 

The pretty customer wouldn't have a word to say to 
the discomfited Mr. Bostwick when he went back, and 
the old man told the proprietor as he went out of the 
door that he believed that young man was just about 
half crazy, and the clerks were all so pleasant that Bost- 
wick nearly went mad every time he was reminded of 
his unfortunate precipitancy, and that is the way he 
became convinced that it was altogether lighter than 
vanity to rent of a deaf man. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 313 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 



THERE was wailing and woe in Burlingtown, 
For every other day 
The humid showers came tumbling down, 
As they had come to stay. • 

There was water enough in the land to spare; 

And men who were wont to pray, 
When they looked in the cellar each morn would swear 

And wrathfully turn away. 

All out on South Hill they pumped and pumped 

From morn till dewy eve, 
But their every effort the storm king trumped, 

And laughed him in his sleeve, 

Till the South Hill man his spirit was broke, 
And he sate him down on his hill. 
" Though I pump till my back cries out," he spoke, 
" My cellar still keeps its fill." 

" Now lithe and listen, good pump of mine, 
If ever I touch thee more, 
May never again the bright sun shine 
As it shone in the days of yore." 

Then he took his pump and he hung it up 

Where it might not taunt his sight, 
And he drowned his grief in the poisonous cup 

Which " moveth itself aright." 



3*4 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

And he vowed him that if the immortal gods 
Would hold up their rain for a while, 

He'd build him a cellar and take the odds — 
On top of his domicile. 

" For what was the use," he grimly said, 
" Of a cellar in the ground, 
Into the which, if you went for bread, 
You were pretty sure to be drowned ? " 

" I hate the cellar ; oh winds of the south, 
Thy rains, as hard as I can ; 
I wish I could strike them both with a drouth," 
Exclaimed the. South Hill man. 

He lifted his eyes to the city road 

A coming figure to scan, 
And a wild fierce light in his optics glowed 

When they fell on the hated gas man. 

He carried his book and his railway lamp, 

And wore a sinister frown ; 
And he sought out the meter in cellars damp, 

And he noted the figures down. 

And whether a man burned much or small, 

Or how often the gas man came, 
Or whether they turned on the gas at all, 

The meter just counted the same. 

So the man of South Hill, when he saw him come, 

Supposing that he had come th — 
Rough ignorance, said, in tones full glum, 
"You cut off my gas last month." 






AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 3*5 

The gas man he winked, and eke as he wunk, 

He shook his head knowinglee, 
And, as though he something suspiciously thunk, 
" We'll look at the meter," said he. 

Then he opened the door of the cellar so damp, 
And he stepped where the pump log had been, 

And he went out of sight, with his book and his lamp, 
As the water he tumbled in. 

" Oh, help ! " loud he shrieked as his noddle came up, 
"Hubbulubbulup!" as his noddle went down, 
While the man of South Hill on the cellar door sill, 
Was the happiest man in the town. 

Splash! Splash! Blubbulup! in the cellar he heard, 

And he hugged himself close in his glee; 
And whenever the gas man would sputter a word, 
"Oh, catch hold of the meter! " cried he. 

And he shut down the doors, and he locked them up 
tight, 

And into the well threw the key, 
And, " Providence always and ever is right : 

Rains and cellars are useful," said he. 



316 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



MR. BARINGER'S HOUSE-CLEANING. 



YOU see, Mr. Baringer has only been keeping house 
about a year, and they took the carpets up this 
Spring for their first general house-cleaning. Mrs. 
Baringer's mother was there, because she said Olivia was 
a mere child at such things, and she didn't believe that 
Aristarchus was much better, and it was better to have 
some one around who could manage. The young people, 
however, felt very confident that they had, by numerous 
consultations and many well-laid plans, reduced house- 
cleaning to a perfect science, a system that had never yet 
been attained by any other housekeepers, and they were 
all impatient to get at work and clean the whole house, 
from garret to cellar, and have all the pictures back on 
the walls and carpets nailed down again before dark. 
They were disgusted at the way other people cleaned 
house, and Olivia thought it was perfectly wonderful 
how Aristarchus could have such beautifully lucid and 
systematic ideas on matters of which most men, and she 
would say most women as well, were so deplorably 
stupid and ignorant. 

The stirring notes of the alarm clock dragged Mr. 
Baringer out of bed at 3:15 A. M., and he thought he 
felt intolerably sleepy for five o'clock, but he didn't 
look at the clock until he was dressed, and then he was 
too mad to swear. He merely woke Mrs. Baringer up to 
tell her that he'd bet a thousand dollars some stupid had 
changed the alarm after he set it. and then he flopped 
down on a lounge to sleep till daylight. He awoke at 
half-past seven o'clock, the hour at which, by their pre- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 317 

arranged system and calculations, the two up-stairs bed- 
room carpets were to have been beaten and ready to put 
down as soon as the floors were dry. Then the kitchen 
fire went out twice, and they finally sat down to break- 
fast at half-past eight o'clock, Mrs. Baringer's mother 
beguiling the time during that matin meal by asking 
Olivia if she minded how she used to be half through 
her house-cleaning by nine o'clock in the morning. But 
Mr. Baringer bore up very well under it, and immediately 
after breakfast, he took up the bed-room carpets. It 
was slow work, jerking the tacks out one at a time. Some 
times they flew up int6 his face ; some times he pulled 
the head off and left the tack in the floor; and when they 
got to be rather thickly scattered around the room he 
put his knee down on one occasionally and talked in a 
fragmentary manner about certain mill privileges in con- 
nection with house-keeping which Mrs. Baringer couldn't 
understand. At last he noticed that by lifting up the 
edge of the carpet, a gentle pull would bring up half a 
dozen tacks in rapid succession. Happy thought. He 
rose to his feet, grasped the bound edge of the carpet in 
both hands, gave a mighty lift and a tremendous pull — 
k-r-r-r-r-r-t ! and when the dust settled a little, Mrs. 
Baringer and her mother were discovered standing in the 
door, looking in speechless horror at Mr. Baringer, who 
stood like an image of despair, holding a carpet with a 
fringe in one hand, and a long line of carpet binding in 
the other. 

" How did you do it? " shrieked Mrs. Baringer. 

■"However did you do it?" echoed Mrs. Baringer's 
mother. 

Then they both said something about the general inca- 
pacity of a man, and Mr. Baringer endeavored to explain 
that in going across the room for the tack hammer he 



318 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

had caught his foot in the edge of the carpet, with the 
result as above. And at the conclusion of his explana- 
tion, Mrs. Baringer's mother gave a sniff that blew dust 
out of the carpet, and there was a general expression of 
incredulity on the faces of the congregation. 

It was a long time before they got the carpets down in 
the yard, and on the line. Then Mr. Baringer approached 
and smote the first carpet with a long stick, and the next 
instant he was feeling his way out of a dense cloud of 
dust, coughing, sneezing and snorting, and wildly gasp- 
ing for air. He went around on the other side, and as 
he aimed a terrific swipe at the" carpet, he struck the 
clothes prop, and his nerveless arm stung and tingled to 
his neck, while his wail was heard down to the city 
building. Then he got at it again, and found that his 
stick was too light, and he took another one. A few 
strokes sufficed to convince him that it was too heavy, 
and he took a lath. That broke in two at the first blow, 
and he tried an apple switch, but it was too limber. He 
finally gave up the idea of beating any more, and called 
to Mrs. Baringer that the carpet was ready to be shaken. 
Mrs. Baringer, with her head in an apron, came out. 
They gathered the carpet, and Mr. Baringer got the start 
of her and shook a roll clear down to her hands, explod- 
ing in a loud snap and a volcano of dust in her face. 
Then she dropped the carpet and sneezed and protested. 

"You shook too quick, deary," she said. 

" But you said you were ready, sweety," replied Mr. 
Baringer. 

" But you shouldn't be so rough, lovey," she protested. 

" Well, I have to shake hard to get the dust out, ducky," 
he insisted. 

"Well, you needn't be so cross about it, deary," she 
said. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 319 

"Oh well," he said, " you must expect hard work house- 
cleaning days, and you mustn't lose your temper, sweety/' 

" It isn'tnne that gets cross and jerks people around, 
lovey," she said, "it's you." 

"I never jerked you around," he retorted. 

"Why, Aristarchus Baringer!" exclaimed his wife, 
making very large eyes at him and speaking in tones of 
the greatest amazement, " and maybe you didn't tear the 
carpet up stairs, either." 

" I wish your old carpet was in Halifax," he said, sav- 
agely. " Pick up that end ; let's get through with it. 
This is sweet work for a dry goods salesman, anyhow ! 
Ready?" 

" No," she snapped, " I ain't ready. Now wait. There. 
Hold on now; don't be in such a hurry. Now ! " 

And the next instant the carpet was snapped out of 
her hands, and it did seem as though her fingers had 
gone with it, while Mr. Baringer, pretending not to know 
that it had fallen from her fingers, kept on shaking vio- 
lently at his end, filling the air with dust and grit. At 
this juncture Mrs. Baringer's mother, who had been a 
quiet spectator of the carpet shaking scene, approached 
and called him to desist. Then she gathered up the 
vacant end of the carpet. 

"Aristarchus," she said kindly but firmly, "Olivia is 
not strong enough for such work." 

Then she added: 

" Have you got a good hold, Aristarchus ? " 

And Mr. Baringer said he had. 

" Don't let go then, Aristarchus. Ready." 

They lifted their arms high in the air and Mr. Baringer 
is undecided yet which part of him started first. He 
walked up the whole length of that carpet on his hands 
and then he fell over the edge and banged along the 



1 



320 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

walk on his hands and knees until he reached the front 
fence, through which he plunged his head, and would have 
gone on through but for his shoulder catching against 
the gate post. The carpets did not go down that day, 
and a big Irishman was engaged to come and welt the 
fuzz off them, Mr. Baringer having privately and with 
some asperity informed his wife that he would rather 
live, sleep, and eat in dirt up to his eyes, than ever again 
to sweep, beat, or shake the lightest carpet ever trodden 
by the foot of man. 



AN AUTUMNAL REVERIE. 



"/ r ~\K dreamy haze: veiling the murmuring river that 
\-^J stretches away like a silver thread under a mos- 
quito bar, winding in wooded nooks and creeping through 
low lying islands where the balmy breeze is redolent with 
the odor of dead leaves and dead fish. Oh lovely haze ; 
what dreams of soulful tenderness its name recalls. Oh, 
musty hays in the street car; oh, hays that used to be 
full of bumble bees ; oh, hazel nuts on another man's 
farm with a big dog hid in the patch. Away; these 
memories are too painful. 

"Afar, the hillsides glitter in gold and scarlet, and the 
sumach bushes, climbing the slope with their nodding 
plumes, look like a new express wagon coming down 
Division Street. The mellow air brings into the city the 
rustle of fallen leaves piled deep on winding cow -paths, 
threading through quiet dells and winding along the side 
of purling brooks. It brings an odor of something old. 
Because it blows over the cheese factory. 






AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 321 



" How faint and far off every sound. The ghosts of the 
dead Summer flowers sigh in every breeze, and the phan- 
tom of the cow that butted the freight train tinkles her 
drowsy bell afar. And in muffled tenderness, as a fall- 
ing star might drop on a feather bed, we hear the team- 
ster's cheery call, ' G'up! ye lop-eared spavin, r I'll lam 
the hair off ye with a dray pin.' And the muffled creak 
of the wood wagon falls plaintively on the ear. Eight 
dollars a cord, and only cut three feet long at that, and 
piled so loosely that when you go to measure it you can 
throw a felt hat through the pile any place and never 
touch a stick. 

" List to the plaintive piping of the quail in the stubble. 
Ah, quail on toast, and the plaintive piping of the anx- 
ious waiter for seventy - five cents. Avaunt, dull dotard, 
take thy black shadow from the fairy scene. (This 
remark was addressed to the waiter, and not to the quail 
on toast.) 

" Why, in these dreamy dark autumnal days — we don't 
know what kind of a day a dark day is, but we wanted 
another word that begins with d and could only think of 
dark and another one, and the other one wouldn't do at 
all; these kind of days then, bring with them a sad — a 
sad — sad something, we knew what it was when we 
started, out, but stopping to explain about that dark 
knocked it clear out of our head; sad — it isn't saddle, 
nor Sadducee, nor — ah yes, now we have it. These 
dreamy days, that come like a tender poem, veiled in the 
delicate drapery that hangs over the distant landscape, 
bring with them " 

At this critical juncture a man with a business-like 
look in his eye burst into the sanctum, slapped his hat 
down on the paste cup, banged a sample case on the ink 
stand, and proceeded to remark in one long unpunctuated 



3 22 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

sentence, " Good morning not a word my dear fellow I 
know the value of an editor's time I wish you just to 
glance at this prospectus of the most valuable work that 
has ever been issued from the American press it is the 
American Centennial Portrait Gallery and you will ob- 
serve contains exquisite steel engravings full page of all 
the Presidents with the autograph of each one appended 
and complete biographical sketches. Observe that en- 
graving of Washington through this glass if you please 
bank note engraving not more perfect not a single line 
crosses or becomes merged into another one what ex- 
pression what fidelity to nature what marvelous portrait- 
ure what minute attention to detail Notice the folds in 
the cloak and the exquisitely penciled pattern of the 
ruffles at the wrists. And so with Adams and Jeffer- 
son and Madison and Monroe and Jackson and all the 
rest of them with biographical sketches compiled from 
the best authorities with facts incidents and reminis- 
cences never before published — a book that no Ameri- 
can of intelligence should be without a book without a 
rival in its field of patriotic biographical excellence. In 
different styles of binding — $3.00, $3.50 and $4.25. 
Now, sir, shall I have your name right here ? " 

We felt all around the room before we could catch our 
breath, and when we regained it we told him we didn't 
believe we could put $4.25 worth of signature anywhere 
that morning, and, after a struggle of fifteen or twenty 
minutes with him, we got him close enough to the stair- 
way to push him over the railing and heard him reach 
the ground floor and disappear into the street and 
around the corner with the long introductory sentence of 
his prospectus trailing after him like the dribbling shower 
of a runaway street sprinkler. And we went on with the 
dreamy, sad, sweet reverie : 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. Z 2 Z 

" The tender song of a day whose wordless beauties 
haunt the mystic scene; the dreamy, vague, imperfect 

memories that bring " 

A man with a black coat and a high hat came softly 
into the sanctum, and after he laid a flat oil cloth case 
on the table, he lifted his hat off with both hands and 
said, speaking in soft and distressingly deliberate tones, 
and articulating with awful distinctness and precision : 
"Ah — is the editor in?" 

We imparted the desired information, and the delib- 
erate man went on, 

" I have taken the liberty to call on a matter of some 
importance to yourself, as well as to the great masses of 
the American people. I have here the artist's proof of 
a new ker- romo entitled ' Columbia.' It is a centennial 
allegory, and is designed by Mr. Alfred Reynolds Vin- 
cenzo Fitzdaub, one of the most eminent artists of 
America, at immense outlay of time, labor and money. The 
tube colors used on the original painting alone cost seven 
dollars and a half, while the can - vas, when prepared 
and stretched for the pict-ewer, was worth nearly doub- 
bel that sum. Here you see, we have in the foreground 
Columbia, her sandaled feet resting upon the broking 
canning to signify that war is no more. At her right 
hand sits the American eagil, ger-rasping the olive ber- 
ranch of peace in his talents, and lifting his wings as 
though pluming himself for fe -light. Here on the left 
we have the artisin in working - dress, the statesman, the 
teacher, the farmer, the sai-leure, repperesenting the 
various callings, and here rushes a train of cars, while 
in the background an old-fashioned stage coach is disap- 
pearing, illustrative of the perrogeress of the past hundred 
years. The original painting is valued at $2,500, but 
these ker-romos we supply for $18 a piece, mounted ready 



324 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

for framing. No man of culture or artistic taste can 
afford to be without this ker - romo. The eye of a con- 
noisseur can not distinguish it ferrom an oil painting. 
Observe the transparency of the atmosphere ; notice the 
soft natural blending of the high light and middle tint 
into the hazy shadows of the backger - round, and the 
bold effects of the heavy cul - louds that overshadow the 
past, where the dim edges are silvered with the sunlight 
that ber - reaks ferrom the veil of the few - chewer. And 
here, you observe, is a blank tablet at the right of the 
figewer of Columbia, for a family record. Only eighteen 
dollars. They will be ready for delivery about the first 
of Jewen, and if I may have the pleasure of seeing your 
signature in this book, just here, it will cost you but the 
trifling sum of eighteen dollars, and establish more fully 
the reputation you have already acquired as a man of 
culture and refined taste." 

We got rid of him after a heated session of about half 
an hour, and he went away, mourning over the depravity 
of a man who had acquired a reputation for culture and 
refined taste under false pretenses. Then we resumed: 

" Over the distant hills, hushed in the misty haze that 
hangs like a veil of peace over the motionless landscape, 
the fleecy clouds, like drifting air - ships on the broad 
expanse of melting blue, bring the sweet " 

A man with a mahogany box came in and sat down, 
and talked as he opened it, and displayed a variety of 
phials and boxes. 

" The profession of literature, my dear sir," he said, 
" is of all others under the ban of the fell destroyer, 
dyspepsia, and it is especially in the Spring of the year 
that literary workers suffer most keenly from its dreadful 
effects. An ounce of prevention, etc. — you know the old 
saying. Now I can see by your heavy eyes that you are 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. $2$ 

at this moment suffering from headache. This " Cen- 
tennial Cordial and American Indian Aboriginal Invigor- 
ator " is one of the latest and most valuable discoveries 
in the world of medical science, and has positively no 
equal for the cure of jaundice and all manner of liver 
disorders, headache, indigestion, want of appetite, dys- 
pepsia, bilious, remittent and intermittent fevers, ague, 
giddiness of the head, rheumatic affections, poverty or 
impurity of the blood, salt rheum, teething, cholera mor- 
bus, croup, ophthalmia,' asthma, hay fever, sea- sickness, 
diphtheria, catarrh, toothache, sleeplessness, gray hair, 
pimples, tan and freckles, kleptomania, emotional insan- 
ity, growing pains, stone bruise, rattlesnake bites, jim- 
jams, katzenjammer, tight boots, bad breath, warts, soft 
corns, old clothes, tailor's bills, spring fever and all other 
ills to which human flesh is heir. Compounded purely 
of herbs and the finest cologne spirits, and selling at the 
ridiculously low price of $1.75 per bottle. Now sir, let 
me 

And we let him out of the door and he went away, 
after marking us for the tomb in a few short weeks. And 
then we tried to get back to our reverie. 

" The sweet days come and go, in hallowed rythmic 
cadences, like the half forgotten chords of some tender, 
sobbing nocturne, while they bring the " 

" No, sir, this is not the tobacco factory ; it's the next 
building up the street. — Thank heaven, he's gone." 

" bring the sad yearning of a restless heart, that 

reaches out amid the hectic flushes of the dying year, as 
it would clasp the " 

" No ma'am, we don't want to buy 'The Centennial Gift 
Book for Young Ladies; ' no, we have no young lady 
friends ; we have no friends of any kind ; we have no 
sisters, or brothers, or relations, we have no money, we 

13 



1 



2,26 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

have no literary taste, we have no desire to read any- 
thing; we can't read, and we don't know anybody who 
can." 

" amid the hectic flushes of the dying year, as it 

would clasp " 

" Have no use for a fly trap, sir ; don't keep house ; ain't 
married ; don't expect to be ; haven't seen a fly in Iowa 
for a thousand years." 

" the hectic flushes of the dying year, as though " 

"No, no, no! this is not the barber-shop. No, we don't _ 
know where the barber-shop is ; there is none in this 
block; there are no barbers in Burlington; the nearest 
barber-shop is at the North Pole. No, sir, you needn't 
apologize, we are not annoyed. Good afternoon, sir." 

" amid the dying flushes of the hectic year whose 

pulses throb so faintly that " 

"No, we don't want any ' Wonderful Saponifier and 
Dirt Eradicator for the Toilet and Laundry.' No, we 
have no family, and we never wash; never heard of such 
a thing as a bath; don't want to be clean; never shave, 
never clean our nails, and have on the same shirt we 
wore the day we were born. No, sir. Yes, sir. Good 
afternoon. " 

" amid the flying dushes of the pulsing year whose 

hectics faint so throbly that " 

"Yes, sir, this is The Haivkeye rffice. No, sir, we do 
not buy sand ; no, we have no eld clothes to exchange 
for tin ware ; no, we don't want any superior stove black- 
ing. Good afternoon, sir." 

" amid the dusting fishes of the throbling hectics 

whose painted ear is throoming in the gulch, so faintly 

fleam the glib and " 

[Note by the editor. We entered the office at this 
point and found the writer of the above in convulsions. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 327 

From the ravings of his delirium we gathered that he 
was trying to write something nice, and was tormented 
by innumerable interruptions. Medical assistants were 
summoned, and we were told to keep the young man's 
head cool and he would get well. So we cut it off and 
had it packed in ice. It weighed two and a half ounces. 
The young man is doing finely, and will not need it again 
this year.] 



INFANTILE SCINTILLATIONS. 



AH yes, we do love children. We fairly dote on them, 
and enjoy and admire their sweet, innocent ways, 
from the dear little cloudy-faced, bare-legged cherubs 
that swear and throw stones at you as you go past Happy 
Hollow, to the sweet-faced but pampered angel that sits 
in the golden lap of luxury and breaks the mirrors aid 
your head with pa's cane. It was purely our love 
for the litt'e innocents that induced us to comply with 
the urgent request of many parents, and open a depart- 
ment in The Hawkeye for the smart sayings of precocious 
children. 

Mrs. H — y B — k, of North Hill, has a sweet little rose- 
bud, of four bright Summers, who came into the house 
and lisped, " Ma, Ith tho theepy." 

" What makes you sleepy? " asked Rosebud's mother. 

" I don't know," murmured the child. 

Strange yearning after the incomprehensible in an 
infant heart. Could any of the children of an older 
growth have made a better answer? 

Then there is little Freddy L , out on West Hill. 



328 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Although he is but three years old, he put his fathers 
watch in the shaving mug, filled the mug out of a kero- 
sene lamp, and set the mix' ure in the oven to dry, where 
it presently dried — soon after the hired girl made up the 
breakfast fire — with such abruptness that three of the 
stoveplates haven't been found since. After the excite- 
ment had subsided, his mother took him on her lap and 
said: 

" Freddy, did you put papa's watch and the mug full 
of oil in the oven ? " 

And the dear child, opening wide his innocent eyes, 
and smiling in tender confidence in her face, said placidly : 

" No, ma'am, 'deed I didn't." 

Sweet, cautious instinct of an untried heart. Could 
any of us get out of it any better than that ? Who can 
tell what vague, uncertain dreams of congressional 
honors float through that busy little mind ? 

Johnnie K is a charming little cherub of four 

bright Springs. One day he poured the ink into the 
globe where the gold-fish were, submerging them instan- 
taneously in total eclipse ; then he put the Bible in the 
fire, threw a bronze paper-weight through the looking- 
glass, broke four eggs in his sister's new hat, and wound 
up his artless sport by throwing the cat down the cistern. 
His mother, discovering all this mischief, suspected who 
was the author, and sought her son. 

"Johnnie," she said, sadly, "Why did you act so 
naughty ? " 

" I didn't," he persisted. " Deed, muzzy, it was ze 
cat!"' 

Sweet child ! Does it need the prescience of a prophet 
to see that he will some day make an excellent witness 
in a great scandal case ? 

Then there is another sweet little tid-toddler out on 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 329 

Seventh Street. The other day one of his parents, the 
female one, put him to sleep and laid him in his little 
crib, and then she ran over the street to ask Mrs. Mul- 
doon how she washed flannels, and got to talking about 
the last funeral, and the mission circle, and the new 
preacher, and forgot all about the baby, and when she 
went home there that dear little blessed was, flat on his 
back, with his little crib lying on top of him, and he 
yelling like a scalded pig. 

Ah, the wild, weird, ventures and dreams of child life. 
Try it, gray-haired man ; see if you can fall out of bed 
and flop your bedstead, slats, springs, mattress and all, 
on top of you as you land on the floor. You can not do 
it, but the tid-toddler of three sweet Summers — ah, well, 
who shall say how their untried instinct shames the lore 
and knowledge of our elder years. 



33° RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



SETTLING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 



STRANGERS visiting the beautiful city of Burlington 
have not failed to notice that one of the handsomest 
young men they meet is very bald, and they fall into the 
usual error of attributing this premature baldness to 
dissipation. But such is not the case. This young man, 
one of the most exemplary Bible -class scholars in the 
city, went to a Baptist sociable out on West Hill one 
night about two years ago. He escorted three charming 
girls, with angelic countenances and human appetites, 
out to. the refreshment table, let them eat all they wanted, 
and then found he had left his pocket-book at home, 
and a deaf man that he had never seen before at the 
cashier's desk. The young man, with his face aflame, 
bent down and said softly, 

" I am ashamed to say I have no change with " 

" Hey? " shouted the cashier. 

" I regret to say," the young man repeated on a little 
louder key, " that I have unfortunately come away with- 
out any change to " 

" Change two ? " chirped the old man, " Oh, yes, I- can 
change five if you want it." 

"No," the young man explained in a terrible, pene- 
trating whisper, for half a dozen people were crowding 
up behind him, impatient to pay their bills and get away, 
" I don't want any change, because " 

"Oh, don't want no change?" the deaf man cried, 
gleefully. " 'Bleeged to ye, 'bleeged to ye. 'Taint often 
we get such generous donations. Pass over your bill." 




NO MONEY 




AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 333 



"No, no," the young man explained, "I have no 
funds " 

" Oh, yes, plenty of fun," the deaf m m replied, grow- 
ing tired of the conversation and noticing the long line 
of people waiting with money in their hands, "but I 
haven't got time to talk about it now. Settle and move 
on." 

" But," the young man gasped out, " I have no 
money " 

" Go Monday ? " queried the deaf cashier. " I don't 
care when you go ; you must pay and let these other 
people come up." 

" I have no money ! " the mortified young man shouted, 
ready to sink into the earth, while the people all around 
him, and especially the three girls he had treated, were 
giggling and chuckling audibly. 

"Owe money? " the cashier said, "of course you do; 

" I can't pay ! " the youth screamed, and by turning his 
pocket inside out and yelling his poverty to the heavens, 
he finally made the deaf man understand. And then he 
had to shriek his full name three times, while his ears 
fairly rang with the half- stifled laughter that was break- 
ing out all around him ; and he had to scream out where 
he worked, and roar when he would pay, and he couldn't 
get the deaf man to understand him until some of the 
church members came up to see what the uproar was, 
and recognizing their young friend, made it all right with 
the cashier. And the young man went out into the night 
and clubbed himself, and shred his locks away until he 
was bald as an egg. 



334 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 



HAWK-EYETEMS. 



SOMEBODY told Billinger that stamps were not re- 
quired on notes, and Billinger, overjoyed, asked the 
crowd to drink, and said he pitied old Gunnybags who had 
been trying for six months to get the stamps on a note he 
holds against Billinger. Billinger says he knew he would 
get the law on the old gouge if he held on long enough. 

" Pull out, Bill ! " shrieked an engineer's son to one 
of his playmates, a brakeman's boy, who was in immi- 
nent danger of getting smashed by his mother, who was 
coming after him, " Git on the main line and give her 
steam! Here comes the switch engine!" But before 
the juvenile could get in motion, she had him by the ear, 
and he was laid up with a hot box. 

A North Hill man refused to give his boy thirty-five 
cents to go to the minstrels, because the entertainment 
was demoralizing and vulgar in its nature. He then 
bought a quarter's worth of chewing tobacco, went home 
and read the Weekly Moral Guide and Guardian, and 
spit all over the front of the stove, and made the parlor 
smell so much like a stale bar-room that the baby had 
three whisky fits before ten o'clock. 

A young editor out in Floyd County, gushing over his 
first, asks, " Did you ever watch a dear little baby wak- 
ing from its morning nap ? " N-not exactly ; but we have 
watched a dear little baby's fond pa gliding up and down 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 335 

the fireless room, trying to induce the dear little baby to 
take a morning nap, at 2:15 A. M. — pressing offers but no 
takers — which was about as much fun as it can be to see 
the baby wake. 

A man out on Summer Street has eight daughters, and 
when they cleaned house last Spring, the woman raked 
9,724 quids of chewing gum down from the window cas- 
ings, chair backs, door panels and sofa backs, the accu- 
mulation of the past Winter. And this does not include 
the wads which the man, at various times sat down on 
and carried away on the tails of his coat, for which no 
accurate returns have been made. 

Old Middlerib came home one night and ordered a 
light lunch before going to bed. " Just a mouthful of 
tea and a bit of bread," he explained. " Do you want 
just plain bread?" asked Mrs. M., with reference to the 
presence or absence of butter. And the old reprobate 
said he would take one piece plain, and the other with a 
looped overskirt, shirred down the gores with the same, 
and held in place with knife pleatings of grape jelly. He 
got the heel of the loaf. 

Everybody thought it was a match, and so did he, 
and so did she. One evening at a croquet party she hit 
her pet corn a whack with the mallet that sounded like 
a torpedo, and he — he laughed. " We meet as strangers," 
she wrote on her cuff and showed it to him. "Think of 
me as no more," he whispered huskily, and when the 
game was ended he rushed down to the Mississippi* and 
drownedf. 

" I wouldn't be such a Christian as you are, John," 
said his wife, as she stood in the doorway, dressed for 

13* 

* Saloon. t Sorrow. 



$$6 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

church. "You could go with me very well, if you 
wanted to." "How can I?" he half sobbed. "There's 
the wood to be split, and the coal to be shoveled over to 
the other side of the cellar, the baby to be dressed, and 
no dishes washed for dinner yet." "Ah, I didn't think 
of that," she murmured thoughtfully, and, giving her 
new cloak a fresh hitch aft, sailed out alone. 

One night last Summer a tired, discouraged man out 
on North Hill went home and flung himself down on a 
lounge, and said " he wished he were dead, dead, dead." 
In two hours he was writhing in a premature and unsea- 
sonable attack of cholera morbus, and howled, and 
prayed, and sweat, and had four doctors in the house, 
and drank a quart of medicine, and had mustard plasters 
smeared all over him, and wept, and said he wasn't half 
tended to, and he believed they would like to see him 
die. 

" Are the children safe ? " asks the Christian Union. 
Quite safe, we assure you. They are up in the garret, 
playing hotel fire. Jimmie is the clerk, and is trying to 
slide down the water pipe to the ground, Willie is a 
guest, hanging to the window sill and waiting for the 
flames to reach his hands before he tries to drop to the 
shed roof, two stories below, and Tom is a heroic fire- 
man, and has tied his fishing line around the baby's 
body, and is letting it down to the ground. Oh, yes, the 
children are all right: just finish your call and don't fret 
about the children. 

"Rents," said Mr. Middlerib, with a sigh of not 
unmixed satisfaction, " are coming down. Yesterday 
morning I tore the back of my coat on the wood-shed 
door, last night I snagged the foundation of my trousers 
on a nail in a store box, and this morning I fell down on 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 337 

the frozen sidewalk and split the knee of the same trou- 
sers clear across. Rents are certainly getting lower." 
" Yes," responded Mrs. Middlerib, looking across toward 
the busy figure at the sewing machine, " and seams- 
tresses are getting hire." Mr. Middlerib looked up at 
his quiet spouse in vague astonishment, as if for explana- 
tion, but she looked sublimely unconscious, and the good 
man went off down town with his napkin tucked under 
his chin, wondering all the way to the office if she meant 
it or if it was only his interpretation. 

"A merciful man," tenderly remarked a Ninth Street 
man one bitter cold January morning, " is merciful to his 
beast," and he called the dog in out of the snow, gave 
him his breakfast in a soup plate, and laid a piece of 
carpet down behind the kitchen stove for him to snooze 
on. Then the man went down town, and the neighbors 
watched his wife shovel snow-paths to the woodshed, 
cistern, stable, and front gate, and then do an hour's 
work cleaning off the sidewalk. 

Who does not love a faithful, honest dog, man's faith- 
ful friend? And yet who is there, stretching out in the 
shade for a quiet afternoon nap, who has had man's 
faithful friend come panting up, and, in an excess of hon- 
est affection, lay a great broad, hot tongue over one's 
cheek, from chin to eyebrow, that does not get up and 
seize man's faithful friend by the tail and one ear and 
try to throw him across a prairie fifteen miles wide ? 

The New York Herald says : " Bake your ripe pear in 
a tart, and eat it with brandy and cream." We'll do it. 
Here, Alvaretto, bake us that ripe pear in a tart and 
dress it with brandy and cream. What ! the pear eaten? 
Well then, the tart crust and the trimmings. The tart 
gone ! Is it possible ? Then the brandy and cream. 



33^ RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Amazement! no cream? Ah, well then, we must not 
neglect good advice. Bring what is left of the recipe. 

A monkey that can say "papa" and "mamma" and 
"Brazil* is going to the Paris exposition. America can 
send a donkey that can say, "Haw — yaas, dweadful baw; 
somebody wing faw the pwopwietah." 

They have just found the skin of another Dane nailed 
to the oaken door of an old, old church in England. 
The skin isn't entire, only scraps of it remaining under 
the broad flat heads of the nails. It was a pleasant way 
the Danes had of destroying the beauty of their crimi- 
nals — they skinned them and then nailed the skin to a 
church door. History does not tell us how the unfor- 
tunate victim employed himself during the operation, but 
it is quite likely that, having nothing else to do, he was 
into some deviltry. 

Old Mr. Troph went into the parlor the other night at 
the witching hour of 11.45 and found the room unlighted 
and his daughter and a dear friend, one of the dual form 
of garmenture variety, occupying the tete-a-tete in the 
corner. " Evangeline," the old man said sternly, " this 
is scandalous.* "Yes, papa," she answered sweetly, "it 
is candleless because times are so hard and lights cost 
so much that Ferdinand and I said we would try and 
get along with the starlight. " And the old gentleman 
turned about in speechless amazement and tried to walk 
out of the room through a panel in the wall paper. 

A woman out on North Hill, being counted out the 
other morning, after a debate on the question, " Who 
shall arise and build the fire ? " got up and split her hus- 
band's wooden leg into kindling wood, and broiled his 
steak with it. It made him so mad that he got hold of 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 339 

her false teeth and bit the dog with them. She cried 
until she had a fit of hysterics, and then flipped out his 
glass eye and climbed upon the bed post and waxed the 
glaring eye to the ceiling with a quid of chewing gum. 
Then he took her wisp of false hair and tied it to a stick, 
and began whitewashing the kitchen with it. Then she 
started off to obtain a divorce, but Judge Newman de- 
cided that he couldn't grant a divorce unless there were 
two parties to the suit, and there was hardly enough left 
of them to make one. 

" You don't look at all well," a venerable gobbler out 
in a North Hill poultry yard remarked to a melancholy- 
looking young rooster, a short time before Thanksgiving 
day. " No," was the reply, " I have reason to look 
solemn: I expect to die necks tweak." The gobbler 
smiled grimly and pondered over the uncertainty of 
poultric life as he slowly swallowed a two - inch bolt 
head. 

Mrs. Middlerib paused to take a final survey of the 
table before she called the ladies out to tea. She started 
as her eyes fell upon the plate of lemon tarts. There 
were five where there had been nine. She sought her 
only son and put him in the witness box. He objected 
to her putting her own construction upon his answers, 
and was subjected to the usual punishment for contuma- 
ciousness. And the next " composition day" at school, 
Master Middlerib amazed his teacher by reading, as the 
title of his essay, " The Lost Tarts, and why They can 
Never be Recovered." 

Sweet, gushing, artless girl! She came home just 
before the Christmas holidays. She went away from 
Burlington one September ; went to England first ; spent 
; the Winter in Italy ; sauntered through Germany in the 



340 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Spring, came back to America and trifled away the Sum- 
mer at Saratoga, Long Branch and the White Mountains ; 
previous to this trip she had been away to school five 
years, and when she jumped out of the palace car into 
her father's arms, she said, -impulsively, " Oh, Paw, Paw, 
deah, deah Paw,thay's no place like home ! " And Paw's 
face was a study as he replied, " Well, np ; no ; reckon 
not ; must be quite a novelty to ye." 

The worst thing we have seen about Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, and the only stain on an otherwise irreproach- 
able character, is that he is the inventor of that parlor 
aggravation known as the hand stereoscope ; a vexatious 
contrivance for which the pictures are always too large 
to be crammed into the springs or too small to stay in 
them, of which the slide is always shoved off the end of 
the stick in the vain efforts of the observer to find a 
focus, and of which the glasses always make you see the 
picture so double that it gives you the headache and 
finally compels you to peep over the top in order to gain 
the information necessary to make some intelligent re- 
mark about the jumble you have been staring at. 

A young man out on North Hill bought a parrot some 
months ago, and in anticipation of the fact that he was 
going to be married and go to the Centennial, he secretly 
taught the parrot to say, " Welcome, thrice welcome 
home," every time anybody opened the front door, think- 
ing what a delightful surprise it would be to his "young 
wife to be thus cheerfully welcomed home on their return. 
But while they were on their tour, the nervous woman 
who was left in charge of the house taught the parrot a 
new remark, as a protection against burglars ; and when 
the young people came home on the night train and let 
themselves in at the hall door with a latch key, they were 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 34I 

shocked and appalled by a terrific shout of " Thieves ! 
thieves ! Police ! police ! Here Bull ! here Bull ! Scat- 
ter, ye son of a thief, or I'll tear your heart out ! " Next 
day the parrot died, and the young wife now says she 
wouldn't stay alone in that house, not for a divorce. 

A Burlington naturalist last Sunday, while investi- 
gating the causes and effects of the poison of a wasp 
sting, nobly determined to make of himself a martyr to 
science, and accordingly handed his thumb to an impa- 
tient insect he had caged in a bottle. The wasp entered 
into the martyr business with a great deal of spirit, and 
backed up to the thumb with an abruptness which took 
the scientist by surprise. He was so deeply absorbed in 
the study of remedies that he forgot to make any notes 
of the other points in connection with stings, but his wife 
wrote a paragraph in his note-book, for the benefit of 
science, to the effect that the primary effect of a wasp 
sting is abrupt, blasphemous and terrific profanity, fol- 
lowed by an intense desire, fairly amounting to a mania, 
for ammonia, camphor and raw brandy. 

One day, just after King Solomon had written a col- 
umn of solid nonpareil wise and moral proverbs, he took 
his eldest son by the elbow, led him down the back stairs 
of the palace, through the back yard, past the woodshed, 
out into the alley, backed him up behind Ahithophel's 
wood-pile, looked warily around to see that no one was 
listening, and whispered into the young man's ear, " My 
son, a little office in a spread-eagle life insurance com- 
pany is better than a cart-load of preferred stock in the 
Ophir mines." And then the monarch threw his head 
on one side, drew in his chin, shut one eye, and gazed at 
his offspring in silence. Three years afterward, when 
the Great Hebraic Consolidated Stormy Jordan Life 



342 rise AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Assurance Company, of which that intelligent young 
prince was president, went into bankruptcy, the young 
man was able to let his father, who was a little short at 
the time, have 275,000 shekels for ninety days, on his 
simple note of hand. 

They were very pretty, and there was apparently five 
or six years difference in their ages. As the train pulled 
up at Bussey, the younger girl blushed, flattened her 
nose nervously against the window, and drew back in 
joyous smiles as a young man came dashing into the car, 
shook hands tenderly and cordially, insisted on carrying 
her valise, magazine, little paper bundle, and would 
probably have carried herself had she permitted him. 
The passengers smiled as she left the car, and the mur- 
mur went rippling through the coach, " They're engaged." 
The other girl sat looking nervously out of the window, 
and once or twice gathered her parcels together as though 
she would leave the car, yet seemed to be expecting some 
one. At last he came. He bulged in at the door like a 
house on fire, looked along the seats until his manly gaze 
fell on her upturned, expectant face, roared, " Come on ! 
I've been waiting for you on the platform for fifteen 
minutes ! " grabbed her basket, and strode out of the 
car, while she followed with a little valise, a band-box, a 
paper bag full of lunch, a bird-cage, a glass jar of jelly, 
and an extra shawl. And a crusty-looking old bachelor, 
in the farther end of the car, croaked out, in unison with 
the indignant looks of the passengers, " They're married !" 

Mr. and Mrs. Bilderback were walking slowly home 
from church one Sunday, when they met a young lady of 
singular beauty and sweetness of countenance, who was 
quite lame. And Mrs. Bilderback turning to her hus- 
band, said, " Did you ever notice what a sweet, uncom- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 343 

plaining look of resignation rests like a halo on the faces 
of young girls who are so sadly afflicted as the lady who 
just passed us ? " And old Bilderback said that indeed 
he had, and he begged his wife to observe him very 
closely, and notice what a sweet, uncomplaining expres- 
sion of peaceful and holy resignation spread itself over 
his face, like a halo, or like a lump of butter on a hot 
buckwheat cake, at such times as his corns tried him 
unusually bad. And she only remarked casually that 
when they got home she would hang a halo around his 
irreverent head that would make what little hair there 
was left on it think the millennium was a million years 
farther away than ever. 

" They had a rather odd race out at the old Acme ball 
grounds yesterday," Trotters remarked to Ponsonby when 
they met yesterday morning. "Jones rode his little 
calico pony around the block, and Brown rolled an 
empty flour barrel the same distance, even start, for $10." 
" Jones beat him, of course ? " said Ponsonby. " Brown 
was a fool to make such a match." "Don't be too 
sure," rejoined Trotters, " when they reached the out- 
come, the barrel head; blowed if it didn't." Pon- 
sonby stared, then slowly smiled, giggled, and finally 
guffawed. " Good enough," he said. " I'll get that off 
to Mrs. Ponsonby." So when he went home he told her 
all about it. "Well," said she, "that's just about as 
much sense as I supposed that precious Brown of yours 
has. I'm glad he lost his money." "Go slow," yelled 
the delighted Ponsonby, who doesn't often have a chance 
to sell his wife, " go slow! By George, Samantha, Brown 
beat!" And Mrs. Ponsonby stared and said he must 
think she was as big a fool as Brown. " No," said he, 
hastily correcting himself, " no, that wasn't just the way 
of it, the barrel beat, that's it ! The barrel beat ; Brown 



344 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

led, did, for a fact, by Jove." And Mrs. Ponsonby 
scornfully told him to go out to the woodshed and see if 
he could find any sticks that would go into the kitchen 
stove — she couldn't. And Ponsonby confidentially told 
the gentleman who saws his wood an inch and a half too 
long for every stove in the house that you might as well 
tell a joke to a sawbuck as to his wife, for she hadn't as 
much conception of genuine humor as a "cow. 

One bright May morning, when the building season 
was at its busiest, a careless mason dropped a half brick 
from the second story of a building out on Jefferson 
Street, on which he was at work. Leaning over the wall 
and glancing downward, he discovered a respectable citi- 
zen with his silk hat scrunched over his eyes and ears, 
rising from a recumbent posture. The mason, in tones 
of some apprehension, asked : " Did that brick hit any 
one down there ? " The citizen, with great difficulty ex- 
tricating himself from the glove - fitting extinguisher, 
replied, with considerable wrath : " Yes, sir, it did ; it hit 
me." "That's right," exclaimed the mason, in tones of 
undisguised admiration. " Noble man ! I would rather 
have wasted a thousand bricks than had you tell me a 
lie about it." 

The papers in this country are quite generally publish- 
ing the following mot of Talleyrand's, which is read with 
the greatest enjoyment by all classes of newspaper 
readers : 

It is said that the notorious M. De Manbreuil, whose name of Mar- 
quis d'Orvault came so scandalously before the public a few years 
past, proposed to have Napoleon assassinated, and that the Abbe de 
Prade was in favor of the scheme, and discussed its execution with 
Talleyrand, and that the following words passed : 

" Combien vous faut-il? " 

44 Dix millions." 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 345 

" Dix millions?" said Talleyrand, " mais ce n'est rein pour debar- 
rasser la France d'un el fileau." 

This is pretty good, but it reminds us of a much bet- 
ter one, though it may be somewhat old, which was 
related to us by Rev. Jasper C. Romilly, formerly of this 
city, about himself. Mr. Romilly, whose distinguishing 
personal characteristic was an immense black beard, was 
for some years a missionary at Ugobogo, in Farther India, 
and on one occasion he dined with the Bugaboo of that 
province. When the wine and walnuts were brought in 
the Bugaboo said : 

"Marcharikai hoi-to-po ke-tee nomkidom?" 

" Jabbero pompety doodle de wonk klonk kobberee 
jam," replied Mr. Romilly. 

" Yowk ? " exclaimed the potentate, " chickero boobery 
hong dong choi-ke-ree yang ste' boi." 

This was, indeed, too good to keep. 

Woman is a natural traveler. It is a study to see her 
start off on a trip by herself. She comes down to the 
depot in an express wagon three hours before train time. 
She insists on sitting on her trunk, out on the platform, 
to keep it from being stolen. She picks up her reticule, 
fan, parasol, lunch basket, small pot with a house plant 
in it, shawl, paper bag of candy, bouquet (she never 
travels without one), small tumbler and extra veil, and 
chases hysterically after every switch - engine that goes 
by, under the impression that it is her train. Her voice 
trembles as she presents herself at the restaurant and 
tries to buy a ticket, and she knocks with the handle of 
her parasol on the door of the old disused tool - house in 
vain hopes that the baggage man will come out and 
check her trunk. She asks every body in the depot and 
on the platform when her train will start, and where it 
will stand, and, looking 'straight at the great clock, asks : 



346 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

" What time is it now ? " She sees, with terror, the 
baggage man shy her trunk into a car where two men are 
smoking, instead of locking it up by itself in a large 
strong, brown car with " Bad order, shops," chalked on 
the side, which she has long ago determined to be the 
baggage car as the only safe one in sight. Although the 
first at the depot, she is the last to get her ticket ; and 
once on the cars, she sits, to the end of her journey, in 
an agony of apprehension that she has got on the wrong 
train and will be landed at some strange station, put in a 
close carriage, drugged, and murdered, and to every last 
male passenger who walks down the aisle she stands up 
and presents her ticket, which she invariably carries in 
her hand. She finally recognizes her waiting friends on 
the platform, leaves the car in a burst of gratitude, and 
the train is ten miles away before she remembers that 
her reticule, fan, parasol, lunch basket, verbena, shawl, 
candy, tumbler, veil and bouquet, are on the car seat where 
she left them, or at the depot in Peoria, for the life of her 
she can't tell which. 

How often a little careless action, a thoughtless word, 
a restless gesture, brings a flood of thoughts surging into 
the soul, that almost tear away the veil of mystery that 
hangs between to-day and to-morrow, and give us 
vague and hasty glimpses into the dark uncertain future. 
When you see a man come out of a drug store, for in- 
stance, with a "prescription carefully compounded," in 
his hand, and dash away at break -neck speed, and then 
see the pharmacist come to the door carrying an uncorked 
bottle, and smell at it earnestly with one nostril, gaze 
anxiously down the street after the man, smell at it long 
and intensely with the other nostril, stare wildly up the 
street after the man, and then sniff at it once or twice 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 347 

with both nostrils, read the prescription over, and retire 
into the medicine shop with a gloomy brow and sad 
shakes of the head, how many things you begin to think 
about then, as it might be. 

" My son," said a pious father out on South Hill to his 
hopeful son, " you did not saw any wood for the kitchen 
stove yesterday, as I told you to, you left the back gate 
open and let the cow get out, you cut off eighteen feet 
from the clothes line to make a lasso, you stoned Mr. 
Robinson's pet dog and lamed it, you put a hard - shell 
turtle in the hired girl's bed, you tied a strange dog to 
Mr. Jacobson's door bell, you painted red and green 
stripes on the legs of old Mrs. Polaby's white pony, and 
hung your sister's bustle out "in the front window. Now, 
what am I — what can I do to you for such conduct?" 
" Are all the counties heard from ? " asked the candidate. 
The father replied sternly, " No trifling, sir ; no, I have 
yet several reports to receive from others of the neigh- 
bors." "Then," replied the boy, "you will not be justi- 
fied in proceeding to extreme measures until the official 
count is in." Shortly afterward the election was thrown 
into the house, and before half the votes were canvassed, 
it was evident, from the peculiar intonation of the 
applause, that the boy was badly beaten. 

Passing by one of the city schools one day we lis- 
tened to the scholars singing, " Oh how I love my teacher 
dear." There was one boy, with a voice like a tornado, 
who was so enthusiastic that he emphasized every other 
word and roared, " Oh how I love my leach-er dear? with 
a vim that left no possible doubt of his affection. Ten 
minutes afterward that boy had been stood up on the 
floor for putting shoemaker's wax on his teacher's chair, 
got three demerit marks for drawing a picture of her 



348 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

with red chalk on the back of an atlas, been well shaken 
for putting a bent pin in another boy's chair, scolded for 
whistling out loud, sentenced to stay after school for 
drawing ink mustaches on his face and blacking the end 
of another boy's nose, and soundly whipped for slapping 
three hundred and thirty - nine spit balls up against the 
ceiling, and throwing one big one into a girl's ear. You 
can't believe half a boy says when he sings. 

" Who dem, Cassius ? " a visiting freedman from Keo- 
kuk asked a friend the other day, as a Masonic lodge, in 
funeral procession, passed by. 

"Dey's de Free and Expected Masons." 

" 'Mazin' what ? " 

"Why, mason nuffin, jest on'y Masons." 

" Sho ! How long dey bin free ? " 

" Oh, gory, long time. Spects ever since de mancipa- 
tion proclamation, anyhow. Some on em was free before 
den." 

" Dat so? Went off to Canada, mos' likely ? " 

" Spect so." 

" Who's done expectin' of 'em ? " 

" Nobody ; jest expectin' demselves. Dey's on'y jest 
Free and Expected Masons, dat's all." 

"Sho! Well, I'd jest like to know what dar is 'mazin' 
about 'em an' I'd done be satisfied." 

Oh, the artless prattle of an innocent childhood ! How 
the sweet music of their hearts and voices calms the wild 
yearnings of the sorrow -crowned years of maturity. At 
a happy home in Burlington the other evening, where the 
family was gathered around the tea-table entertaining 
unexpected guests, the fond mother said to the youngest 
darling, "Weedie, darling; be careful; you mustn't spill 
the berries on the table - cloth." " 'Taint a table - cloth," 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 349 

promptly responded darling, " it's a sheet." And late at 
night, when the company had gone away, and that sweet 
child was standing with its head nearly where its feet 
ought to be, catching with its tear -blinded eyes occa- 
sional glimpses of a fleeting slipper that fluttered in the 
air in eccentric gyrations, one could see how early in the 
stormy years of this brief life, one may begin to suffer 
for the truth. 

When you see a young man sitting in a parlor, with 
the ugliest six year old boy that ever frightened himself 
in the mirror clambering over his knees, jerking his 
white tie out of knot, mussing his white vest, kicking his 
shins, feeling in all his pockets for nickles, bombarding 
him from time to time with various bits of light furniture 
and bijouterie, calling him names at the top of his fiendish 
lungs and yelling incessantly for him to come out in the 
yard and play, while the unresisting victim smiles all the 
time like the cover of a comic almanac, you may safely 
bet — although there isn't a sign of a girl apparent in a 
radius of 10,000 miles — you can bet your bottom dollar 
that howling boy has a sister who is primping in a room 
not twenty feet away, and that the young man doesn't 
come there just for the fun of playing with her brother. 

It was at the sociable. Young Mr. Sophthed, who 
reads poetry oh, so divinely, and is oh, so nice, stepped 
on her dress as she was hurrying across the room. 
K-r-r-rt! R'p ! R'p! how it tore and jerked, and how 
Mr. Sophthed looked as though he would die. "Oh, 
dear, no, Mr. Sophthed," she sweetly said, smiling till 
she looked like a seraph who had got down here by mis- 
take, "it's of no consequence, I assure you, it doesn't 
make a particle of difference, at all." Just twenty -five 
minutes later, her husband, helping her into the street 



35<D RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

car, mussed her ruffle. " Goodness gracious me ! " she 
snapped out, "go way and let me alone; you'll tear me 
to pieces if you keep on." And she flopped down on 
the seat so hard that every thing rattled, and the fright- 
ened driver, ejaculating, " There goes that brake chain 
again," crawled under the car with his lantern to see 
how badly it had given way. 

Art has its votaries even amid the untaught children 
of the wilderness. A few days ago a savage Indian 
painted his own face, went into an emigrant wagon that 
was sketched, by himself, out on the prairie after dark, 
and drew a woman from under the canvas and sculptor. 

Mrs. J. C. McWhelter, who lives out on Ninth Street, 
worked three weeks building a rookery out of cracked 
geodes, and threw the whole pile away in fifteen minutes 
yesterday afternoon, bombarding a neighbor who said her 
baby's hair was red enough to heat its catnip tea on. 

An enraptured Burlington lover, hearing his sweet- 
heart sigh dejectedly the other evening, rapturously ad- 
ministered a quartette of kisses and exclaimed, " You're 
mine, now, in spite of fate ! " " And why ? " she asked. 
" Because," he said, "four of a kind beats ace high.'' 
But she believes to this day that he played a cold deck 
on her. 

" All flesh is grass," as the reaping machine said 
when it chawed up the harvest hand. 

A man may carry a load of guilt concealed in his tor- 
tured soul for years, and hide it with a veneering of hol- 
low, heartless, deceitful smiles, but it doesn't take five 
minutes for the thoughtless world to observe and under- 
stand the one - shouldered gait of a man whose larboard 
suspender button has parted. 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 35 1 

The other day a public reader, while entertaining an 
audience with a masterly rendition of an extract from 
" Macbeth," dropped his false teeth out, but he went 
right on with the soliloquy, " Ig gish a daggag ash I see 
befog me? Cug, leg me glug ghee!" And then the 
audience got up and howled and threw all the chairs out 
of the window and sent out for somebody to come in and 
hold them while they hollered. 

A South Hill man complained to old Dibbs, the 
other day, that his house was infested with chimney 
swallows, but old Dibbs says he is ready to bet fifty dol- 
lars that the man swallows twice as much as the chimney 
does. 

A young native poet, who is writing a " song of olden 
Rome," asks us to give him a rhyme for Romulus. A 
dozen, if he wants them : 

" If o'er that wall you leap, oh dunce, 

The lightning stroke would harm you less." 
But Remus laughed and leaped ; at once 
His head was punched by Romulus. 

A fellow never appreciates the tender beauty of a 
sister's love half so much as when he makes her get out 
of the big rocking - chair, and let him have the morning 
paper, while she goes off and leans up. against the end 
of the bureau and feeds her starving intellect on the 
household receipts at the back of Jayne's family almanac. 
A brother's love is like pure gold. It's dreadfully hard 
to find, and when you find it, it's very apt to be pyrites. 

" Did you never," asked a transcendental young lady 

just three weeks from Vassar, of the West Hill young 

man, " Did you never feel a vague, unrestful yearning 

after the beyond? a wild, strange, impulsive longing and 

reaching out after the unattainable ? " And the West 
° 14 



352 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

Hill man said he often had, last Summer, at such times 
as he was trying to scratch a square inch full of hives, 
right between his shoulder blades, and just out of reach 
of any thing. 

A benevolent clergyman recently helped a profane 
Burlington inebriate out of the gutter, and gently rebuk- 
ing him reminded him that the " wages of sin is death." 
" I know V replied the erring one, " but I've worked so 
much over time, and the shop is so far in arrears to me 
that I'll never get half that's comin' to me any how." 
And he went off to work right along on the same old job. 

The tramp has his revenge on society after all. If 
they refuse his request for a square meal at any house, 
he lurks around the vicinity with threatening glances 
until nightfall, when he skulks rapidly away with the 
cheering, comforting knowledge that while he is snoring 
all the hours of that long Summer night away under a 
haystack, every being in that house will sit bolt upright 
in bed all night, frightened by the wind, terrified by the 
rustling of the leaves, scared into fits when even the dog 
barks, and fairly bounced out of bed every time the clock 
strikes, while a nightmare of burglarious tramps fills 
every drowsy moment with awakening terrors. No won- 
der that tramps always look happy and contented. 

Old Mr. Balbriggan is very much pleased with a gen- 
tleman whom he has engaged to saw wood. " When he 
piles the wood," said old Balbriggan to his friend, " if one 
stick projects beyond the others, he pounds it in with the 
ax." " He's a slouch," replied Bifelstone, " you should 
see my wood sawyer. When he gets the wood all piled 
he takes off the rough projecting ends with a hand saw." 
" He couldn't pile wood for me," broke in old Mr. Pilking- 
horn, " my sawyer piles the wood carefully, then goes 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 353 

over the ends with a jack plane, sand-papers them down 
and puts on a coat of varnish before he ever thinks of 
asking for his pay.'' And then they all went in after a 
big drink before Throckmorton could tell how his wood 
sawyer silver - plated all the ends of the wood and nailed 
a handle on every stick to pick it up by. Because, you 
see, Throckmorton is such a liar, and they all know it. 

A West Hill minister picked up a frozen wasp on 
the sidewalk, and with a view to advancing the interests 
of science, he carried it in the house and held it by the 
tail while he warmed its ears over a lamp chimney. His 
object was to see if wasps froze to death, or merely lay 
dormant during the Winter. He is of the opinion that 
they merely lie dormant, and the dormantest kind at 
that, and when they revive, he says, the tail thaws out 
first, for while this one's head, right over the lamp, was 
so stiff and cold it could not wink, its probe worked with 
such inconceivable rapidity that the minister couldn't 
gasp fast enough to keep up with it. He threw the 
vicious thing down the lamp chimney, and said he didn't 
want to have any more truck with a dormant wasp, at 
which his wife burst into tears and asked how he, a min- 
ister of the gospel, could use such language, right before 
the children, too. 

When a man accustoms himself to owning a dog, and 
turning around at every corner to look up and down 
street for him, and whistle him out of stairways, or yell 
at him to stop his fooling with other dogs and come along, 
or make dashes into a crowd of earnest and excited dogs 
who are holding a caucus and have each other by the 
ear, and especially his dog — that man is a slave to a 
habit that he will never break. It will cling to him, we 
believe, after he gets to heaven, for most men who love 



354 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

dogs are pretty sure of going to heaven. We once saw 
an old settler standing at the Barrett House corner, peer- 
ing up and down street, and stooping down to look under 
the hacks, and " wondering where he could be," and 
whistling and growing impatient, and scolding and call- 
ing, " Hyuh, Turk ! yuh ! yuh ! yuh ! " until every dog in 
Burlington was sitting around the Barrett House corner, 
patiently pounding the snow with his tail and mentally 
resolving to lay for Turk if he ever came. Presently a 
young man came along and, greeting the anxious dog 
hunter as his " Father," asked what he was waiting there 
for ? The old settler said he had lost Turk somewhere 
right around there, and couldn't see hide nor hair of him, 
and couldn't imagine where he had gone to. "Turk!" 
roared his dutiful son, " Turk ! Suffering Moses ! And 
him dead eight years ago!" And he hustled the old 
man away before he could begin to whistle up any more 
ghosts. 

The balmy breath of Spring is so entwined with the 
fragrance of new onions that a man has to grip his nose 
with a spring clothes pin every time he stoops to pluck 
a violet. 

A gifted contributor sends us a poem beginning 
" Open the doors to the children." You'd better, if you 
don't want all the paint kicked off the panels. 

There is nothing that tends to destroy popular sym- 
pathy for the working classes so much as the habit a 
bricklayer has of dropping bits of mortar from the top of 
a five-story wall into the eye of the wondering man who 
stands under the lofty scaffolding and looks up. 

A porcelain-lined kettle in a berry-stricken neigh- 
borhood is the nearest approach to perpetual motion that 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 355 

has yet been realized. Its incessant motion is only- 
rivaled by the slow, steady growth of the sugar bill. 

One of the discoveries made by the latest arctic 
explorers is that the length of the polar night is one 
hundred and forty-two days. What a heavenly place 
that would be in which to tell a man with a bill to call 
around day after to-morrow and get his money. 

A fashion journal says " white velvet dresses give a 
roundness to the figure." They give an awful lankness 
to the figures on a hundred dollar bill. 

Multum in parvo : Iowa tramp, to lady of the house : 
"Please, missus, won't you give me something to drink? 
I'm so hungry I don't know where I'll stay to-night." 

An eminent New York jurist, who has retired from the 
bench, always shakes hands with his friends by turning 
around and passing his right hand behind his back. It 
is supposed the peculiar habit was contracted during his 
active professional life. 

Cards of invitation in Utah, issued by a young lady 
and her mother, always present the compliments of 
"Miss Smith and the Mrs. Smiths." 

We are told by a Russian traveler that the summit of 
Mt. Hood is a single sharp peak of lava. White or 
Balaclava ? 

A scientific gentleman sends us an elaborate treatise 
on "the healthiness of lemons. " They may be dread- 
fully healthy, but they are terribly soured in their dispo- 
sitions. 

A rising young tenor of Burlington has a neck eight 
inches long, and it gives him an immense power over his 
voice; enables him to throat a long ways. (Tra, la, la !) 



356 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

The whale is the sulkiest of all fishes. He is the 
worst pouter in the business. 

About the oldest little game of draw we know of was 
played when Joshua razed Jericho, and the fellows of the 
city wished they hadn't stayed in. 

Your landlord is probably the finest example of filial 
affection and duty you ever met. He is unremitting in 
his attention to and care of his pay rents. 

" Was it her brother? " is the title of a new novel. We 
think not. It is our impression that the large gentlemen 
in a plaid coat, who was kicking him down stairs and 
calling for the dog, was her brother. 

George Washington's strongest hold upon the Amer- 
ican people is the fact that he never wore a box coat and 
a plug hat. 

History says, "Caesar had his Brutus." But some- 
how or other we always had the impression that Brutus 
rather had Caesar. 

By some wicked and unpardonable error, the case of 
the photographs of editors on exhibition at the Centennial 
got misplaced, and was exhibited in a frame labeled 
"Native woods of the United States." 

Nature's effort to maintain equilibrium is never 
better set forth than in the instinctive struggles of a man 
with one suspender to carry both shoulders even. 

On account of the Turco-Russian war and the failure 
of the American cabbage crop last year, nearly all the 
genuine imported Turkish tobacco used in this country 
this Summer will have to be made out of plaintain weed. 

The day after Christmas, father and mother no longer 
come sneaking in at the back door with mysterious look- 



And other hawk - eyetems. 357 

ing bundles. No, indeedy. Mother is gliding around 
with the expression of a Christian martyr with the tooth- 
ache, because she didn't get what she expected, and 
father is sitting around, holding his breath till the bills 
come in. 

You can utilize your cake of maple sugar, if you find 
there is too much sand in it to make molasses of, by put- 
ting it in a neat frame of card-board, or some kind of 
fancy work, in bright colors, and hanging it up against 
the wall to light matches on. It never wears out. 

Flies are made for some good and useful purpose after 
all. If it wasn't for the busy flies, men with their never 
dying souls to save and lots of work to do, would lie 
down after dinner and sleep till six o'clock every day. 

A Nashville bank robber burrowed under a street for 
five days, and at length came up in the coal vault of a 
beer saloon, three doors away from the bank, and bit 
himself in eleven places with the most uncompromising 
dog he ever tried to conciliate. The next time he 
attempts any mining operations he will take a practical 
engineer along. 

It was intensely hot in Salt Lake City last Summer, 
and one night about 1,820 linear feet of prickly heat 
broke out on the infant backs in Brigham Young's nurs- 
ery. The eruption hasn't been equaled since Mt. Vesu- 
vius cooled off. 

It is in the merry month of Spring that a tree peddler 
comes around and talks you to death, and sells you a 
plum tree that bears fruit so bitter that it poisons every 
curculio that tastes it, and some cherry trees that send 
up one hundred and fifty sprouts to the square inch and 
will lift the house off its foundations in two years' 



358 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

growth, and some apple trees that neither sprout, blos- 
som, nor bear fruit, and some blackberry bushes that 
spread all over a ten-acre lot the first season, and some 
gooseberry bushes that have thorns on a foot long, and 
never have anything else, and some peach trees that 
break out in bloom from the ground to the tip of the top- 
most branch five days after they are put in the ground 
and die as dead as a flint the sixth day, and a climbing 
rose tree that turns out to be wild ivy and poisons every 
soul about the house before the Summer is over. 

When the late Governor of the Persian province of 
Fars retired from office, the Government officials put him 
in the stocks and pounded the soles of his feet until he 
disgorged $300,000 of crooked salary. If the Govern- 
ment of the United States would adopt that system, five 
hundred million pairs of crutches would carry the popu- 
lation of the republic to and from its daily labor. And 
if we knew where we could get hold of a man who would 
give down like the late worthy Governor of Fars, we 
would gather him by the ankles, stand him on his head, 
and welt the soles of his feet until his backbone went 
through the top of his head and stuck nine inches in the 
ground. 

There is a junior in the Burlington high school who, 
when his father cuffs his scholastic ears for leaving the 
wheelbarrow standing athwart the front gate, can go out 
to the woodshed and swear in French, grumble in Ger- 
man, threaten to run away and be a pirate in good classic 
Greek, and blubber in honest United States. 

One day last Winter a young lady broke through the 
ice of a deep skating pond near Toronto, and a young 
man rescued her at the risk of his own life. As the half 
drowned girl was recovering consciousness, her agonized 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 359 

father arrived on the spot. Taking one of her cold, white 
hands in one of his own, he reached out the other for the 
hand of her rescuer, but the young man, realizing his 
danger, with one frightened glance broke for the woods, 
and was soon lost to view. He has not been heard of 
since, and it is supposed that he is traveling in the 
United States under the false and hollow name of Smith. 

We haven't given the subject enough study to speak 
very confidently upon it, but we rather believe, when 
the end of the world comes, and the last trump calls all 
mankind together, that the man who died with rheuma- 
tism will lie still a long time, and will feel the small of 
his back, and rub his knees slowly and thoughtfully a 
great many times, before he finally groans and makes up 
his mind to get up. And, as like as not, by the time he 
gets on his feet everybody else will be gone. 

Man — What power of nature has he not subdued ? 
What climate has he not trodden under foot ? What 
arctic rigor and tropical heat, what polaf snows and 
equatorial sunstrokes has he not laughed to scorn ? He 
has tamed the elements, he has made the ocean his high- 
way, he has made fire and water, earth and air, his ser- 
vants, and bent beneath his all-subduing yoke even the 
wild lightnings to be his messenger. And yet he can not, 
arching himself upon the back of his head and on his heels, 
scoop with his eager palm, cracker crumbs from the irri- 
tating sheet with a sufficient degree of success to insure 
himself a good night's sleep. He can not, he can not — 
oh, might of the giant, it kaint be did ! 

A woman will take the smallest drawer in a bureau 

for her own private use, and will pack away in it bright 

bits of boxes, of all shades and sizes, dainty fragments 

of ribbon, and scraps of lace, foamy ruffles, velvet things 
14* 



360 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

for the neck, bundles of old love-letters, pieces of jew- 
elry, handkerchiefs, fans, things that no man knows the 
name of, all sorts of fresh- looking, bright little traps that 
you couldn't catalogue in a column, and any hour of the 
day or night she can go to that drawer and pick up any 
article she wants without disturbing any thing else. 
Whereas a man, having the biggest, deepest and widest 
drawer assigned to him, will chuck into it three socks, a 
collar-box, an old necktie, two handkerchiefs, a pipe and 
a pair of suspenders, and to save his soul he can't shut 
that drawer without leaving more ends of things sticking 
out than there are things in it, and it always looks as 
though it had been packed with a hydraulic press. 

One day a young man of respectable appearance 
attracted considerable attention on Third Street, while 
crossing over to the Barrett House. He stopped in the 
middle of the street and yelled, and danced up and down 
on one leg, while he held the other out and kicked, like 
the can-can lady on the bulletin boards. The bystanders 
thought he was crazy, and threw stones and mud at him, 
and knocked him down and choked him, and held him 
still, while he never ceased to shriek, " Snake up my 
leg ! Snake up my leg ! " Then they reached up and 
pulled a small roll of bills out of his trousers leg, and 
let him up, when he raised his hands to heaven and 
swore he would never carry money in a hip pocket again, 
hole or no hole. 

It was on a bright April morning that Mr. Alanson 
Bodley, who lives out on Summer Street, stepped out of 
the house in a tender frame of mind, singing softly to 
himself, " Oh had I the wings of a dove, I'd fly, Away 

from " Just then the hired girl threw the bed- room 

carpet out of the window, and as its dusty folds envel- 



AND OTHER HA WK - EYETEMS, 36 1 

oped Mr. Bodley, and threw his struggling form down 
stairs, he was heard to exclaim in muffled tones, " If I 
get out of this, if I don't cut the raw heart out of the 
bloody-minded assassin that slung that carpet, strike me 
dead! " Thus, too often, the tenderer influences that 
bring into life and being our higher and noble emotions 
and transcendental longings, are warped and distorted 
by the stern realities of life, like a wet boot behind the 
kitchen stove. 

They had the awfulest time up at Jerome Cavendish's 
house, on West Hill, one evening, and Mrs. Cavendish 
went into hysterics, and Miss Cavendish fainted, and 
young George Cavendish grabbed his hat and ran out 
of the house, and old Cavendish raved and ramped 
around like a crazy man, all just because they had 
waffles for tea, and Miss Cavendish found a — " oh ! ow ! 
ow!! 00-00-00!!! ee-e-e-e!!! " hard-baked beetle in a 
waffle. Oh, it was terrible ! It was awful ! It was too 
awful! Too awful! Two waffle! 

One day last Spring a sweet-faced woman, with a 
smile like an angel and a voice softer and sweeter than 
the sound of flutes upon the water, was walking up Fifth 
Street. She was walking very slowly, enjoying the cool, 
soft air, and the delicious shade of those maple trees 
just below Division Street. Her languid motions were 
the perfection of grace, and she was the admiration of 
every pair of eyes on the street, when suddenly she 
threw her parasol over the steeple of the church, 
screamed till she rattled the windows in the parsonage, 
jumped up as high as the fence three times, and whooped 
and shrieked, and wailed, and howled, and kicked until 
everybody thought she had suddenly become insane. 
But when they ran up and caught hold of her and poured 



362 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

water on her head and $15 bonnet, and shook her until 
she quit screaming and began to talk, they found that 
one of those green worms, about an inch long, had 
dropped from the maple leaves and slid down her back. 
And they didn't wonder that she yelled and made a fuss 
about it. 

Some years ago a public - spirited citizen of Burlington 
died, and left, by his will, $175,000 to found an orphan 
asylum; and his sons and daughters, and nieces and 
nephews, and cousins, and brothers and sisters, and all 
his wife's relations, contested the will, and fought and 
wrangled and called each other names, and told hard 
stories about each other, and proved up wonderful 
claims, and hired lawyers by the acre, and kept the fight 
up manfully until quite lately, when it transpired that the 
man only had $35 in the whole wide world when he died, 
and owed that to his grocer, and was in debt about $300 
beside, and that the coffin he was buried in hadn't been 
paid for yet. And it was sad to see those claimants 
standing around the streets with grip -sacks in their 
hands trying to get out of town, with a lawyer and a 
capias lurking behind every corner. 

A pair of deaf mutes were married in Monroe, Geor- 
gia, three years ago, and now it is more fun than a circus 
to see them quarrel and make faces at each other with 
their fingers. 

It is a remarkable coincidence, and shows the benefi- 
cent watchcare which a kind Providence exercises over 
mankind, that the advertisements of new and infallible 
cholera mixtures should appear in the city papers just 
about the time watermelons come in. 

When a man, coming down to breakfast half awake, 
with his uncertain feet shod in a pair of slip -shod slip- 



AND OTHER HAWK - EYETEMS. 363 

pers, steps on a spool on the first step, he is generally- 
wide-awake enough by the time he tries to break the 
last step to have a very vivid and not entirely incorrect 
idea of the power and indestructible force generated by 
the Keely motor. But that isn't what he talks about 
when he goes into the breakfast room and the folks ask 
him what made such a noise in the hall ? 

At a charity ball in New York one lady wore diamonds 
valued at $85,000, and another belle wore a $23,000 
dress, and so all the way down to the poor people, whose 
clothes didn't cost more than $1,800. The net proceeds 
of the ball, which were to be devoted to charitable pur- 
poses, amounted to $11.25, which the door-keeper and 
ticket-seller spent for hot drinks. 

Two young ladies of Tama County, have finished a 
quilt containing 10,696 pieces, and the local paper 
proudly asks if anybody in Iowa can beat that? We 
haven't anything in Burlington like that in the quilt line, 
but Caspar Cruger, up on Eighth Street, fell down the 
plank walk steps leading down to Valley Street, one 
morning, and ran 10,697 pine slivers into his back and 
legs, and a Tama man than he was when he got up 
you never saw. 

Another "wild boy" has made his startling and 
erratic appearance in Texas, but since the fact has be- 
come generally known that the first time a stranger takes 
a drink of Texas whisky he goes out on the prairie and 
looks for a clean place to have a fit, public confidence in 
Texas " wild boys " has been sadly shaken. 

The Massachusetts papers are discussing the question, 
" May Cousins Marry ? " We should hope so. We 
don't see why a cousin hasn't as good a right to marry 



3 6 4 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

as a brother or an uncle or a son or sister. They all get 
used to cousin' after they marry, anyhow. 

Abdel Moulk Kahn, the eldest son of the Emir of 
Bokhara, has made a pilgrimage to Mecca, in accordance 
with the Mohammedan custom. In this country it is 
customary for the Moulk Kahns to Mecca pilgrimage to 
the nearest river just before milking time. 

A Burlington man, who is a monomaniac on the 
subject of roller skates, and who spent ninety - two days in 
the rink during the past season, and got more falls than 
he has hairs on his head, and got himself stuck so full 
of slivers that he wears through his clothes like a nut- 
meg grater, calls himself a " hard rinker,'' and conse- 
quently he is haunted by traveling agents of temperance 
societies. 

John Thompson, of Muscatine, ran away from home 
with a circus three years ago, and now he is posted on 
the bill boards of his native town as " Giovanni Tiom- 
peonatti, the Inimitable and Unapproachable Grand 
Double Flying Trapeze and Philo Protean Prestidita- 
teurean Athleto- Acrobat." Oh, why should the spirit of 
mortal be proud ? 

Steel ropes are being introduced into the British navy 
in place of the clumsy hemp hawsers. They had better 
enlist a few good government contractors from America. 
They'll steal ropes, swabs, tar buckets, marlin - spikes, 
capstan bars, or anything else that isn't nailed down and 
under guard. 

The French know how to cook an egg three hundred 
and sixty -five different ways, and yet, if it is a little 
bilious to begin with, the strongest combination of all 
these ways won't make a very eggy egg of it. 



AND OTHER HAWK -EYETEMS. 365 



A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 



"1T7HY are we assembled here to-day?. To rejoice 
* * that we are a free people, endowed - with the 
inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness, at long range. To rejoice that the precious boon 
and heritage of freedom is ours, bequeathed us by the 
fathers who fought, bled and died, that I and mine, and 
you and yours might breathe the air of freedom. And 
we rejoice to-day; we are proud and happy and glad, 
glad, glad, that our fathers died for us, instead of com- 
pelling us to die for them. They were great, grand men. 
In fact, they were, many of them, great-grandfathers. 

They died; but their lives were deathless. They 
died ; but the grave could not cover the memory of their 
heroism, and the red hand of history wrote down their 
names on the pension lists. I do not recall all of their 
names just at present, one of them, however, was named 
John, I think. 

It is sweet to die for one's country. It seems to me 
that I too would gladly, oh how gladly, add my name to 
the list of the great and good, and die for my country — 
of old age. I would die sooner if it was thought nec- 
essary, but I haven't got time. I am too busy. But if 
any sacrifices are needed next centennial, they may call 
on me, and I will either come or send a hand. 

Our fathers died for us. They died willingly and 
gladly. But if they could come back to-day and see 
what kind of a crowd they died for : — quarreling over 
the President's policy ; wrangling over the currency and 
some of us trying to pay a dollar's worth of debt with 



366 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE, 

ninety cents worth of money ; talking politics twenty- 
three hours a day, and praying so seldom that our knees 
get rusty ; drowned out by rain ; devoured by grasshop- 
pers ; they would, if they had it to do over again, live 
nine thousand years and only die when they had to. 

And yet, ours is a glorious country. A wonderful, 
magnificent country. It is marvelous. As a high school 
girl would say, it is " nice." Look abroad over our land; 
turn the pages of history and see what the mighty genius 
of progress has wrought. But one short century ago, the 
corner-stone of this mighty fabric was laid, amid the 
thunder of cannon and the rattle of musketry, canopied 
by the smoke of battle, and cemented with blood. A 
little band of struggling, needy patriots, half clad, poorly 
fed, with only a few dollars in the national treasury. 
To-day the sun of one thousand and one years breaks 
upon the land — wherever it isn't storming — and where 
do we stand ? A billion dollars in debt. 

Our fathers died ; but they had no railroads. If they 
had they might have died with less expense and trouble 
before they got to the war. Our fathers never knew the 
ecstatic pleasure of leaning out of a car window and 
getting a red hot cinder as big as a pea in their eye be- 
fore they could look at a tree. They had no telegraph, 
and never knew what a convenience it was to pay forty 
cents to send a message fifty miles, and then have the 
dispatch come lagging along a day or two after the man 
had died of old age. They had no kerosene lamps, and 
they never knew what it was to light a kitchen fire and 
take a balloon ascension out of the same can. They 
had no United States signal service, and never had forty- 
five rainy days in a month with a tornado ever wash-day. 
Their wants were simple : they didn't need a great deal 
of weather, and what they had was regulated by the 



AND OTHER HA WK - EYETEMS. 367 

ground hog, and that reliable weather bureau never made 
a mistake until during the few years past, since Pro- 
fessor Tice has got him so mixed up with new fangled 
theories of planetary and magnetic influences or atmos- 
pheric disturbances, that he can't tell a hail storm from 
a fog. 

These men have passed away. In their simple habits ; 
their sterling honesty ; their grand patriotism ; their un- 
selfish devotion to principle ; they passed from life into 
eternal fame. The men of '76 are gone. I do not 
know where, but they have gone somewhere ; I do not 
see any of them here. If there are any present, they 
will please rise, for I am willing to be corrected when I 
am wrong. We may conclude then that the men of '76 
are gone. There are, however, several men left who 
are lightning at sixty-six and seven up. 

The fourth of July was invented by a man whose 
name is dear to all American hearts — George W. Wash- 
ington. By an ingenious arrangement the fourth of July 
was so contrived by the inventor, that it would always 
fall on a rainy day. It has only missed it once in the 
past twelve hundred years, and that once it hailed all 
day. The fourth of July was not the only invention of 
this great and good man. He invented a name that will 
fit two-thirds of the boys of every generation in Amer- 
ica. A grateful people never forget the fact, and Wash- 
ington, when at the zenith of his power, was nominated 
by acclimation for the capitol of the United States. 
Washington was once discovered praying, at Valley 
Forge, and from the great stress laid upon the incident 
by all historians, it is judged that it was the only time 
anybody ever caught him praying. He was a brave, 
good man, but he dressed too much like a member of a 
base ball club to be elected President in these days. 



368 RISE AND FALL OF THE MUSTACHE. 



HOW SHE KEPT YOUNG. 



TVTISS CORISANDE was born only two years ear- 
*-H Her than her brother Tom. When Tom was ten 
years old she gloried because she was twelve. When 
Tom was known to be fourteen, she confessed to sweet 
sixteen. When Tom proudly boasted of eighteen, she 
timidly acknowledged herself past nineteen. When he 
came home from college, with a mustache and a vote, 
and had a party in honor of his twenty-first birthday, 
she said to her friends: "What a boyish fellow he is; 
who would think he was only a year younger than I ? " 

When Tom declared he was twenty-five years and old 
enough to get married, she said to a gentleman friend : 
"Do you know, I feel savagely jealous to think of Tom 
getting married. But then I suppose twins always are 
more attached to each other than other brothers and 
sisters." And two years later, at Tom's wedding, she 
said with girlish vivacity, to the wedding guests: "Dear 
old Tom, to see him married to-night, and then think 
how, when he was only five years old, they brought him 
in to see me, his only sister; I wonder if he thinks of it 
to-night ? " 

You have met Miss Corisande, probably. She lives in 
your town. 



The End. 



t>23 


















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